Within an hour it was agreed that the western half of the Ibwiri clearing should be granted to us for foraging; that the eastern half, from a certain stream, should be the reserve of the natives. Khamis, the Manyuema, was also induced to enter into the pact. In return for a packet of brass rods, Boryo, the principal chief of the Balessé of the district, presented us with five fowls and a goat. This was a great day. Since August 31st not one follower of the Expedition had enjoyed a full meal, but now bananas, plantains ripe and green, potatoes, herbs, yams, beans, sugar-cane, corn, melons in such quantities were given them that were they so many elephants they could not have exhausted the stock provided for them in less than ten days. They could gratify to the full the appetite so long stinted and starved. As we were compelled to wait for Mr. Jephson and some sixty Zanzibaris--forty of the relief party, boat's crew, and convalescents from Ipoto--the good effect of this abundance would be visible in a few clays. It was also one of those settlements we had been anxiously searching for as a recuperating station. On this date the men were hideous to look upon, because of their gaunt nakedness. They were naked, for they had stripped themselves to obtain food from the slaves of the Manyuema at Ugarrowwa's and Ipoto; of flesh they had none, for they had been reduced to bones by seventy-three days of famine and thirteen days of absolute want; of strength they had but little, and they were ill-favoured in every respect; their native colour of oiled bronze had become a mixture of grimy black and wood ashes; their rolling eyes betrayed signs of disease, impure blood, and indurated livers; that beautiful contour of body, and graceful and delicate outlines of muscles--alas, alas!--were all gone. They more befitted a charnel-house than a camp of men bound to continually wear fighting accoutrements. Khamis, the Manyuema guide, offered the next morning to proceed east to search out the road from Ibwiri, for, as he informed me, Boryo, the chief, had told him of a grass-land being not many days off. He thought that with a few of Boryo's natives, and thirty of our riflemen, he could discover something of interest. Calling Boryo to me, he confirmed, as well as we could understand him, that from a place called Mandé, which he said was only two days' good marching--say forty miles--the grass-land could be seen; that herds of cattle came in such numbers to the Ituri river to drink that the river "swelled up." All this chimed with my eager desire to know how far we were from the open country, and as Boryo said he was willing to furnish guides, I called for volunteers. Twenty-eight men came forward, to my surprise, as willing and as eager for new adventures as though they had been revelling in plenty for the last few months. Khamis and his party departed shortly after.