On the 8th October appeared at Kanyenye a large down-caravan headed by Abdullah bin Nasib, a Msawahili of Zanzibar, whose African name is Kisesa. This good man began with the usual token of hospitality, the gift of a goat, and some measures of the fine Unyanyembe rice, of which return-parties carry an ample store: he called upon me at once with several companions,--one of them surprised me not a little by an English “good morning,”--and he kindly volunteered to halt a day whilst we wrote reports and letters, life-certificates, and duplicate-indents upon Zanzibar for extra supplies of drugs and medical comforts, cloth and beads. The asses were now reduced to five, and as Magomba refused to part with any of his few animals, at any price,--on the coast I had been assured that asses were as numerous as dogs in Ugogo--Abdullah gave me one of his riding-animals, and would take nothing for it except a little medicine, and a paper acknowledging his civility. Several of the slaves and porters had been persuaded by the Wagogo to desert, and Abdullah busied himself to recover them. One man, who had suddenly deposited his pack upon the path and had disappeared in the jungle during the noonday halt, was pointed out by a woman to Kidogo, and was found lurking in a neighbouring village, where the people refused to give him up. Abdullah sent for Magomba’s four chief “ministers,” and persuaded them to render active aid: they seized the fellow, took from him his wire and his nine cloths, appropriated four, and left me five wherewith to engage another porter. The deserter was of course dismissed, but the severity of the treatment did not prevent three desertions on the next day. The 10th October ushered in an ugly march. Emerging betimes from the glaring white and red plains of Kanyenye, dotted with fields, villages, and calabashes, we unloaded in a thin jungle of mimosa and grass-bunches, near sundry pools, then almost dried up, but still surrounded by a straggling growth of chamærops and verdurous thorns. The bush gave every opportunity to the porters, who had dispersed in the halt, to desert with impunity. In our hurried morning tramp, want of carriage had caused considerable confusion, and at 2 P.M., when again the word “load” was given for a tirikeza, everything seemed to go wrong. Said bin Salim and the Jemadar hurried forwards, leaving me to manage the departure with Kidogo, who, whilst my companion lay under a calabash almost unable to move, substituted for his strong Mnyamwezi ass a wretched animal unable to bear the lightest load. The Baloch Belok was asked to carry our only gourd full of water; he pleaded sickness as an excuse. And, when the rear of the caravan was about to march, Kidogo, who alone knew the way, hastened on so fast that he left us to wander through a labyrinth of elephants’ tracks, hedged in by thorns and brambly trees, which did considerable damage to clothes and cutis.