At Wanyika we were delayed for a day by the necessity of settling Kuhonga, or blackmail, with the envoys of Mzogera. This great man, the principal Sultan of Uvinza, is also the Lord of the Malagarazi River. As he can enforce his claims by forbidding the ferrymen to assist strangers, he must be carefully humoured. He received about forty cloths, white and blue, six Kitindi or coil bracelets, and ten Fundo (or 100 necklaces) of coral beads. It is equivalent in these lands to 50_l._ in England. When all the items had been duly palavered over, we resumed our march on the 2nd February. The road, following an incline towards the valley of the river, in which bush and field alternated with shallow pools, black mud, and putrid grass, led to Unyanguruwwe, a miserable settlement, producing, however, millet in abundance, sweet potatoes, and the finest manioc. On the 3rd February we set out betimes. Spanning cultivation and undulating grassy ground, and passing over hill-opens to avoid the deeper swamps, we debouched from a jungle upon the river-plain, with the swift brown stream, then about fifty yards broad, swirling through the tall wet grasses of its banks on our right hand, hard by the road. Upon the off side a herd of elephants, forming Indian file, slowly broke through the reed-fence in front of them: our purblind eyes mistook them for buffaloes. Northwards lay an expanse of card-table plain, over which the stream, when in flood, debords to the distance of two miles, cutting it with deep creeks and inlets. The flat is bounded in the far offing by a sinuous line of faint blue hills, the haunts of the Watuta; whilst, westward and southward, rises the wall-shaped ridge, stony and wooded, which buttresses the left bank of the river for some days’ journey down the stream. We found lodgings for the night in a little village, called from its district Ugaga; we obtained provisions, and we lost no time in opening the question of ferryage. The Sultan Mzogera had sold his permission to cross the river. The Mutware, or Mutwale, the Lord of the Ferry, now required payment for his canoes. Whilst delayed at Ugaga by the scabrous question of how much was to be extracted from me, I will enter into a few geographical details concerning the Malagarazi River.