The plains, basins, and steps, or facets of table-land found at every elevation, are fertilised by a stripe-work of streams, runnels, and burns, which anastomosing in a single channel, flow off into the main drain of the country. Cultivation is found in patches isolated by thick belts of thorny jungle, and the villages are few and rarely visited. As usual in hilly countries, they are built upon high ridges and the slopes of cones, for rapid drainage after rain, a purer air and fewer mosquitoes, and, perhaps, protection from kidnappers. The country people bring down their supplies of grain and pulse for caravans. There is some delay and difficulty on the first day of arrival at a station, and provisions for a party exceeding a hundred men are not to be depended upon after the third or fourth marketing, when the people have exhausted their stores. Fearing the thievish disposition of the Wasagara, who will attempt even to snatch away a cloth from a sleeping man, travellers rarely lodge near the settlements. Kraals of thorn, capacious circles enclosing straw boothies, are found at every march, and, when burned or destroyed by accident, they are rebuilt before the bivouac. The roads, as usual in East Africa, are tracks trodden down by caravans and cattle, and the water-course is ever the favourite Pass. Many of the ascents and descents are so proclivitous that donkeys must be relieved of their loads; and in fording the sluggish streams, where no grass forms a causeway over the soft, viscid mire, the animals sink almost to the knees. The steepest paths are those in the upper regions; in the lower, though the inclines are often severe, they are generally longer, and consequently easier. At the foot of each hill there is either a mud or a water-course dividing it from its neighbour. These obstacles greatly reduce the direct distance of the day’s march.