The castor-oil plant was also extensively cultivated. Requiring a supply of castor-oil as medicine, the beans were roasted, and then pounded in a wooden mortar, and we expressed a fair quantity, which proved very effective. We also required a supply for rifles, and their mechanisms, and the men prepared a supply for anointing their bodies--an operation which made them appear fresh, clean, and vigorous. [Illustration: PIPES.] Having discovered that four of our scouts were strangely absent, I despatched Rashid bin Omar and twenty men in search of them. They were discovered and brought to us next morning, and to my surprise the four absentees, led by the incorrigible Juma Waziri, were driving a flock of twenty fine goats, which the chief scout had captured by a ruse. I had often been tempted to sacrifice Juma for the benefit of others, but the rogue always appeared with such an inoffensive, and crave-your-humble-pardon kind of face, which could not be resisted. He was of a handsome Abyssinian type, but the hypocrisy on his features marred their natural beauty. A Mhuma, Masai, Mtaturu, or Galla must have meat, even more so than the Englishman. It is an article of faith with him, that life is not worth living without an occasional taste of beef. I therefore warned Juma again, and consoled myself with the reflection, that his career as a scout could only be for a brief time, and that he would surely meet natives of craft and courage equal to his own some day. We had made an ineffectual start on this day, had actually left the village a few hundred yards when we were stopped by the depth of a river forty yards wide and with a current of two and a half miles an hour. The old crone called this the Ituri. Marvelling that between Ipoto and Ibwiri a river 400 yards wide could be narrowed to such a narrow stream, we had returned to Indésura for a day's halt, and I had immediately after sent Lieutenant Stairs and Mr. Jephson with sufficient escort back along yesterday's path to find a ford across the Ituri. At 4 P.M. both officers returned to report a successful discovery of a ford a mile and a half higher up the stream, and that they had set foot upon the grass-land, in proof of which they held a bunch of fine young succulent grass. Meantime, Uledi and his party had also found another ford waist deep, still nearer Indésura.