This lower portion of the Mgeta’s bed was unfordable after the heavy rains: other caravans, however, had made a rude bridge of trees, felled on each side, lashed with creepers, and jammed together by the force of the current. The men perched upon the trunks and boughs, tossed or handed to one another the loads and packages, whilst the asses, pushed by force of arm down the banks, were driven with sticks and stones across the stream. Suddenly a louder cry than usual arose from the mob; my double-barrelled elephant-gun found a grave below the cold and swirling waters. The Goanese Gaetano had the courage to plunge in; the depth was about twelve feet; the sole was of roots and loose sand, and the stream ran with considerable force. I bade farewell to that gun;--by the bye it was the second accident of the kind that had occurred to it;--the country people cannot dive, and no one ventures to affront the _genius loci_, the mamba or crocodile. I found consolation in the thought that the Expedition had passed without accident through the most dangerous part of the journey. In 18 days, from the 27th of June, to the 14th of July, I had accomplished, despite sickness and all manner of difficulties, a march of 118 indirect statute miles, and had entered K’hutu, the safe rendezvous of foreign merchants. Resuming our march on the 15th July, we entered the “Doab,”[5] on the western bank of the Mgeta, where a thick and tangled jungle, with luxuriant and putrescent vegetation, is backed by low, grassy grounds, frequently inundated. Presently, however, the dense thicket opened out into a fine park country, peculiarly rich in game, where the calabash and the giant trees of the seaboard gave way to mimosas, gums, and stunted thorns. Large gnus, whom the porters regard with a wholesome awe, declaring that they are capable of charging a caravan, pranced about, pawing the ground, and shaking their formidable manes; hartebeest and other antelopes clustered together on the plain, or travelled in herds to slake their thirst at the river. The homely cry of the partridge resounded from the brake, and the guinea-fowls looked like large bluebells upon the trees. Small land-crabs took refuge in the pits and holes, which made the path a cause of frequent accidents; whilst ants of various kinds, crossing the road in close columns, attacked man and beast ferociously, causing the caravan to break into a halting, trotting hobble, ludicrous to behold. Whilst crossing a sandy Fiumara, Abdullah, a Baloch, lodged by accident four ounces of lead, the contents of my second elephant-gun, in the head of an ass. After a march of six hours we entered Kiruru, a small, ragged, and muddy village of Wak’hutu, deep in a plantation of holcus, whose tall, stiff canes nearly swept me from the saddle. The weather was a succession of raw mist, rain in torrents, and fiery sunbursts; the land appeared rotten, and the jungle smelt of death. At Kiruru I found a cottage, and enjoyed for the first