“Until three o’clock P. M. the following day continued the negotiations for ferrying us across the Malagarazi, consisting of arguments, threats, quarrels, loud shouting and stormy debate on both sides. Finally, six doti and ten fundo of sami-sami beads were agreed upon. After which we marched to the ferry, distant half a mile from the scene of so much contention. The river at this place was not more than thirty yards broad, sluggish and deep; yet I would prefer attempting to cross the Mississippi by swimming rather than the Malagarazi. Such another river for the crocodiles, cruel as death, I cannot conceive. Their long, tapering heads dotted the river everywhere, and though I amused myself, pelting them with two-ounce balls, I made no effect on their numbers. Two canoes had discharged their live cargo on the other side of the river when the story of Captain Burton’s passage across the Malagarazi higher up was brought vividly to my mind by the extortions which Mutware now commenced. [Illustration: A FLOATING ALLIGATOR.] “Two marches from Malagarazi brought us to Uhha. Kawanga was the first place in Uhha where we halted. It is the village where resides the first mutware, or chief, to whom caravans have to pay tribute. To this man we paid twelve and a half doti, upon the understanding that we would have to pay no more between here and Ujiji. We left Kawanga cheerfully enough. The country undulated gently before us like the prairie of Nebraska, as devoid of trees almost as our plains. The top of every wave of land enabled us to see the scores of villages which dotted its surface, though it required keen eyes to detect at a distance the beehived and straw-thatched huts from the bleached grass of the plain. “Pursuing our way next day, after a few hours’ march, we came to Kahirigi, and quartered ourselves in a large village, governed over by Mionvu’s brother, who had already been advised by Mionvu of the windfall in store for him. This man, as soon as we had set the tent, put in a claim for thirty doti, which I was able to reduce, after much eloquence, lasting over five hours, to twenty-six doti. I saw my fine array of bales being reduced fast. Four more such demands as Mionvu’s would leave me, in unclassic phrase, ‘cleaned out.’