Again it may be imagined that the three dozen are well applied by the revengeful defendant, and that neither that plaintiff nor that defendant ever troubled that excellent “police-officer” again. On Rubeho’s summit we found a single village of villanous Wasagara; afterwards “made clean”--as the mild Hindu expresses the extermination of his fellow-men--by a caravan in revenge for the murder of a porter. We were delayed on the hill-top a whole day, despite the extreme discomfort of all hands. Water had to be fetched from a runnel that issued from a rusty pool shaded by tilted-up strata of sandstone, at least a mile distant from camp. Rain fell daily, alternating with eruptions of sun; a stream of thick mist rolled down the ravines and hollows, and at night the howling winds made Rubeho their meeting-place. Yet neither would the sons of Ramji carry my companion’s hammock, nor would Said bin Salim allow his children to be so burdened; moreover, whatever measures one attempted with the porters, the other did his best to thwart. “Men,” say the Persians, “kiss an ass for an object.” I attempted with Kidogo that sweet speech which, according to Orientals, is stronger than chains, and administered “goose’s oil” in such quantities that I was graciously permitted to make an arrangement for the transport of my companion with the Kirangozi. On the 14th September, our tempers being sensibly cooled by the weather, we left the hill-top and broke ground upon the counterslope or landward descent of the Usagara Mountains. Following a narrow footpath that wound along the hill-flanks, on red earth growing thick clumps of cactus and feathery mimosa, after forty-five minutes’ march we found a kraal in a swampy green gap, bisected by a sluggish rivulet that irrigated scanty fields of grain, gourds, and water-melons, the property of distant villagers. For the first time since many days I had strength enough to muster the porters and to inspect their loads. The outfit, which was expected to last a year, had been half exhausted in three months. I summoned Said bin Salim, and passed on to him my anxiety. Like a veritable Arab, he declared, without the least emotion, that we had enough to reach Unyanyembe, where we certainly should be joined by the escort of twenty-two porters. “But how do you know that?” I inquired. “Allah is all-knowing,” replied Said; “but the caravan _will_ come.” Such fatalism is infectious. I ceased to think upon the subject.