At Muhama I halted three days, a delay which generally occurred before long desert marches for which provisions are required. On the first, Kidogo would bring about sixty pounds of grain; on the second, he would disperse his men throughout the villages, and procure the 300 pounds required for five marches; and on the third, he would cause it to be husked and pounded, so as to be ready for the morrow. Three up-caravans, containing a total of about 150 men, suffering severely from small-pox, here passed us. One was commanded by Khalfan bin Muallim Salim and his brother Id, coast Arabs, whom we afterwards met at two places. He told me several deliberate falsehoods about the twenty-two porters that were to follow us, for instance, that he had left them, halted by disease, at Kidunda, in the maritime region, under the command of one Abdullah bin Jumah, and thus he led me to expect them at a time when they had not even been engaged. He and his men also spread reports in Ugogo and other places where the people are peculiarly suspicious concerning the magical and malignant powers of the “whites;” in fact, he showed all the bad spirit of his bastard blood. At Muhama, the furthest point westward to which the vuli or autumnal rains extend, the climate was still that of the Rufuta Range, foggy, misty mornings, white rags of cloudbank from the table-cloths outspread upon the heights, clear days, with hot suns and chilling south winds, and raw dewy nights. I again suffered from fever; the attack, after lasting seven days, disappeared, leaving, however, hepatic complications, which having lasted uninterruptedly ten months, either wore themselves out, or yielded to the action of acids, narcotics, and stimulants tardily forwarded from Zanzibar. Here also over-fatigue, in a fruitless shooting-excursion, combined with the mephitic air of stagnant, weedy waters, caused a return of my companion’s fever. Two other Wanyamwezi porters were laid up with small-pox. One ass died of fatigue, whilst a second torn by a hyæna, and a third too weak to walk, were left, together with the animal that had been stung by bees, in charge of Mpambe, headman of the Wangindo. Being now reduced to the number of nineteen beasts, I submitted to Said bin Salim the advisability of leaving behind wire and ammunition, either cached in the jungle, as is the custom of these lands, or entrusted to the headman. The Arab approved; Kidogo, however, dissented. I took the opinion of the latter, he was positive that the effects once abandoned would never be recovered, and that the headman, who appeared a kind of cunning idiot, was not to be trusted. Some months afterwards I commissioned an Arab merchant, who was marching towards the coast, to recover the asses left in the charge of Mpambe; the latter refused to give them up, thus proving the soundness of Kidogo’s judgment.