Desertions from the expedition had been frequent. At first, Kachéché, the chief detective, and his gang of four men, who had received their instructions to follow us a day’s journey behind, enabled me to recapture sixteen of the deserters; but the cunning Wangwana and Wanyamwezi soon discovered this resource of mine against their well-known freaks, and, instead of striking east in their departure, absconded either south or north of the track. We then had detectives posted long before dawn, several hundred yards away from the camp, who were bidden to lie in wait in the bush, until the expedition had started, and in this manner we succeeded in repressing to some extent the disposition to desert, and arrested very many men on the point of escaping; but even this was not adequate. Fifty had abandoned us before reaching Mpwapwa, taking with them the advances they had received, and often their guns, on which our safety might depend. Several feeble men and women also had to be left behind; and it was evident that the very wariest methods failed to bind the people to their duties. The best of treatment and abundance of provisions daily distributed were alike insufficient to induce such faithless natures to be loyal. However, we persisted, and as often as we failed in one way, we tried another. Had all these men remained loyal to their contract and promises, we should have been too strong for any force to attack us, as our numbers must necessarily have commanded respect in lands and among tribes where only power is respected. One day’s march from Mpwapwa, the route skirting a broad arm of the Marenga Mkali desert, which leads to the Ugombo lake, brought us to Chunyu—an exposed and weak settlement, overlooking the desert or wilderness separating Usagara from Ugogo. Close to our right towered the Usagara mountains, and on our left stretched the inhospitable arm of the wilderness. Fifteen or twenty miles distant to the south rose the vast cluster of Rubeho’s cones and peaks. The water at Chunyu is nitrous and bitter to the taste. The natives were once prosperous, but repeated attacks from the Wahehé to the south and the Wahumba to the north have reduced them in numbers, and compelled them to seek refuge on the hill-summits. _Dec. 16._—On the 16th of December, at early dawn, we struck camp, and at an energetic pace descended into the wilderness, and at 7 P.M. the vanguard of the expedition entered Ugogo, camping two or three miles from the frontier village of Kikombo. The next day, at a more moderate pace, we entered the populated district, and took shelter under a mighty baobab a few hundred yards distant from the chief’s village.