After repairing the “boma,” or fenced kraal,--it had been burnt down, as often happens, by the last caravan of Wanyamwezi,--I left my companion, who was prostrate with fever, and went out, gun in hand, to inspect the country, and to procure meat, that necessary having fallen short. The good P’hazi, Tumba Ihere, accompanied me, and after return he received an ample present for his services, and departed. The Baloch employed themselves in cleaning their rusty matchlock-barrels with a bit of kopra,--dried cocoa-nut meat,--in weaving for themselves sandals, like the spartelle of the Pyrenees, with green palmetto-leaves; in preparing calabash fibre for fatilah or gun-matches, and in twisting cords for the asses. The best material is supplied by an aloetic plant, the Hig or Haskul of Somaliland, here called by the Arabs Bag, and by the natives Mukonge. The Mananazi, or pine-apple, grows wild as far as three marches from the coast, but its fibrous qualities are unknown to the people. Ismail, the invalid Baloch, was the worse for remedies; and two other men gave signs of breaking down. During the first week, creeping along at a slug’s pace, we heard the booming of the Artémise’s evening gun, an assurance that refuge was at hand. Presently these reports ceased. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, seized with mortal sickness, had left Kaole suddenly, and he died on board the Artémise on the 5th July, shortly after his return to Zanzibar. The first letters announcing the sad event were lost: with characteristic African futility the porter despatched with the parcel from the island, finding that the Expedition had passed on to the mountains of Usagara, left his charge with a village headman, and returned to whence he came. Easterns still hold that “Though it be honest, it is never good, To bring bad news.” The report, spread by a travelling trader, was discussed throughout the camp, but I was kept in ignorance of it till Khudabakhsh, a Baloch, who had probably been deputed by his brethren to ascertain what effect the decease of the consul would have upon me, “hardened his heart,” and took upon himself the task of communicating the evil intelligence. I was uncertain what to believe. Said bin Salim declared, when consulted, that he fully trusted in the truth of the report, but his reasons were somewhat too Arabo-African to convince me. He had found three pieces of scarlet broadcloth damaged by rats,--an omen of death; and the colour pointed out the nationality of the departed.