On the next day we set out betimes through the forest, which, as usual when nearing populous settlements, spread out, and which began at this season to show a preponderance of green over brown. Presently we reached a large expanse of yellow stover where the van had halted, in order that the caravan might make its first appearance with dignity. Ensued a clearing, studded with large stockaded villages, peering over tall hedges of dark green milk-bush, fields of maize and millet, manioc, gourds, and water-melons, and showing numerous flocks and herds, clustering around the shallow pits. The people swarmed from their abodes, young and old hustling one another for a better stare; the man forsook his loom and the girl her hoe, and for the remainder of the march we were escorted by a tail of screaming boys and shouting adults; the males almost nude, the women, bare to the waist and clothed only knee-deep in kilts, accompanied us, puffing pipes the while, with wallets of withered or flabby flesh flapping the air, striking their hoes with stones, crying “Beads! beads!” and ejaculating their wonder in strident explosions of “Hi! hi!--Hui! ih!” and “Ha!--a!--a!” It was a spectacle to make an anchorite of a man,--it was at once ludicrous and disgusting. At length the Kirangozi fluttered his red flag in the wind, and the drums, horns, and larynxes of his followers began the fearful uproar which introduces a caravan to the admiring “natives.” Leading the way, our guide, much to my surprise,--I knew not then that such was the immemorial custom of Unyamwezi,--entered uninvited and sans ceremony the nearest large village; the long string of porters flocked in with bag and baggage, and we followed their example. The guests at once dispersed themselves through the several courts and compounds into which the interior hollow was divided, and lodged themselves with as much regard for self and disregard for their grumbling hosts as possible. We were placed under a wall-less roof, bounded on one side by the bars of the village palisade, and the mob of starers that relieved one another from morning till night made me feel like the denizen of a menagerie. [Illustration: Usagara Mountains, seen from Ugogo.] CHAP. IX. THE GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOGRAPHY OF UGOGO,--THE THIRD REGION.