The next day was a halt, and a strong foraging party was sent over to Itiri to collect food. In the afternoon it returned, bringing several days’ supply of plantains with a few goats and fowls, and for the first time we were able to make soup and distribute meat to the Banalya sick. It was reported to me that the Manyuema had carved a woman most butcherly to allay their strong craving for meat, but the headman assured me that it was utterly false, and I am inclined to believe him, for the Zanzibaris, if they had really detected such a monstrous habit in people who might at any time contaminate their cooking-pots, would have insisted on making a severe example. [Sidenote: 1888. Sept. 30. Avugadu.] On the last day of September we moved up to above upper rapids of Avugadu, at which camp we discovered wild oranges. There were also wild mango-trees, if we may trust the flowering and foliage. Red figs of a sweetish flavour were very common, but as their shrunk pedicels possessed no saccharine secretions they were uneatable. A native woman was delivered of a child on the road. She was seen standing over the tiny atom. The Zanzibaris as they came up crowded around the unusual sight, and one said, “throw the thing into the river out of the way.” “But why should you do that when the infant is alive?” asked another. “Why don’t you see that it is white? it must be some terrible disease I am sure.” “Oh Ignorance, how many evils transpire under thy dark shade.” “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” rushed to my mind, as I looked in wonder at the speakers, who, utterly unconscious that they were committing murder, would have extinguished the little spark of life there and then. Our anxieties at this period were mainly on the account of those suffering from ulcers. There was one wise little boy of about thirteen called Soudi, who formerly attended on the Major. An injury he had received had caused about four inches of the leg bone to be exposed. We had also fifteen cases of small-pox, who mingled in the freest manner possible with our Zanzibaris, and only the suicide, Tam, had thus far been attacked. [Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 1. Avejeli.]