As a man went to draw water from the stream, close by, an ancient crone stepped out of the bush, and the man dropped his water-pot and seized her. She being vigorous and obstinate, like most of her sex just previous to dotage, made a vigorous defence for her liberty. A Countess of Salisbury could not have been more resolute, but the man possessed superior strength and craft and hauled her into camp. By dint of smiles and coaxing and obsequiously filling a long pipe for her, we learned that we were in Indésura, that the people were called Wanya-Sura, that the villagers quenched their thirst with the waters of the Ituri. "The Ituri?" "Ay, the Ituri; this stream close by;" that many days east of us was a great broad river, ever so much broader than the Ituri, with canoes as wide as a house (ten feet) which would carry six people (_sic_); that a few days north there was a mighty tribe called the Banzanza, and east of them another people called the Bakandi, and both of these tribes possessed numerous herds of cattle, and were very valorous and warlike, and who were rich in cattle, cowries, and brass wire. [Illustration: IYUGU; A CALL TO ARMS.] Our ancient captive, who was somewhat peculiar for her taste in personal decoration by having a wooden disk of the size of an ulster button intruded into the centre of her upper lip, was now seized with another fit of obstinacy and scowled malignantly at all of us except at a bashful smooth-faced youth upon whom she apparently doted, but the foolish youth ascribed the ugliness of agedness to witchcraft, and fled from her. Indésura--and, as we discovered later, all the villages situated on the edge of the forest--was remarkable for the variety and excellent quality of its products. Mostly all the huts contained large baskets of superior tobacco weighing from twenty to fifty pounds each, such quantities, indeed, that every smoker in the camp obtained from five to ten pounds. The crone called it "Taba;" in Ibwiri it was called Tabo. Owing to the imperfect drying it is not fragrant, but it is extremely smokable. Fifty pipefuls a day of it would not produce so much effect on the nerves as one of the article known as Cavendish. But here and there among the leaves there were a few of rich brown colour, slightly spotted with nitre which produced a different effect. Two of our officers experimented on a pipeful of this, which they deemed to be superior, and were inconceivably wretched in consequence. When, however, these leaves are picked out, the tobacco is mild and innocuous, as may be judged by the half-pint pipe-bowls peculiar to this region. In every district near the grass-land the plant is abundantly cultivated, for the purpose of commerce with the herdsmen of the plains in exchange for meat.