At Jiwe la Mkoa the neck of the desert is broken: the western portion of Mgunda Mk’hali has already thinned out. On the 23rd October, despite the long march of the preceding day, Khalfan proposed a Tirikeza, declaring that the heavy nimbus from the west, accompanied by a pleasant cold, portended rain, and that this rain, like the “Choti Barsat” of India, announces the approach of the great Masika, or vernal wet season. Yielding to his reasons, we crossed the “Round Rock,” and passing through an open forest of tall trees, with here and there an undulating break, now yellow with quartz, then black with humus, we reached, after about three hours, another clearing like Jiwe la Mkoa, which owes its origin to the requirements of commerce. “Kirurumo” boasted of several newly built Tembe of Wakimbu, who supplied caravans at an exorbitant rate. The blackness of the ground, and the vivid green of vegetation, evidenced the proximity of water. The potable element was found in pits, sunk in a narrow nullah running northwards across the clearing; it was muddy and abundant. On the next day the road led through a thin forest of thorns and gums, which, bare of bush and underwood, afforded a broad path and pleasant, easy travelling. Sign of elephant and rhinoceros, giraffe and antelope, crossed the path, and as usual in such places, the asses were tormented by the Tzetze. After travelling four hours and thirty minutes, we reached a new settlement upon the western frontier of Uganzi, called “Jiweni,” “near the stones,” from the heaps of block and boulder scattered round pits of good water, sunk about three feet in the ground. The Mongo Nullah, a deep surface-drain, bisects this clearing, which is palpably modern. Many of the trees are barked previous to felling, and others have fallen prostrate, apparently from the depredations of the white ant. On the 25th, after another desert march of 2 hrs. 20′ through a flat country, where the forest was somewhat deformed by bush and brake, which in places narrowed the path to a mere goat-track, we arrived at the third quarter of Mgunda Mk’hali. “Mgongo T’hembo,” or the Elephant’s Back, derives its name from a long narrow ridge of chocolate-coloured syenite, outcropping from the low forest lands around it; the crest of the chain is composed of loose rocks and large detached boulders. Like the other inhabited portions of Mgunda Mk’hali, it is a recent clearing; numerous “black-jacks,” felled trees, and pollarded stumps still cumber the fields. The “Elephant’s Back” is, however, more extensive and better cultivated than any of its neighbours,--Mdáburu alone excepted,--and water being abundant and near the surface, it supports an increasing population of mixed Wakimbu and Wataturu, who dwell in large substantial Tembe, and live by selling their surplus holcus, maize, and fowls to travellers. They do not, like the Wakimbu of Jiwe la Mkoa, refuse entrance to their villages, but they