We—the Europeans—were as great curiosities to the natives as though they lived hundreds of miles from the Unyanyembé road. Each of the principal men and women extended to us pressing invitations to stop in their villages, and handsome young chiefs entreated us to become their blood-brothers. Young Keelusu, the son of the chief of Mwenna, even came to my camp at night, and begged me to accept a “small gift from a friend,” which he had brought. This gift was a gallon of new milk, still warm from the udder. Such a welcome present was reciprocated with a gilt bracelet, with a great green crystal set in it, a briarwood pipe, stem banded in silver, a gilt chain, and a Sohari cloth, with which he was so overjoyed as almost to weep. His emotions of gratitude were visible in the glistening and dilated eyes, and felt in the fervent grasp he gave my hand. By some magic art with his sandals of cowhide, he predicted success to my journey. As the right sandal after being tossed three times upward, each time turned upside down, my good health and well-being, he said, were assured, without a doubt. _Jan. 2._—The next halt was made at Mtiwi, the chief of which was Malewa. The aneroid here indicated an altitude of 2825 feet. Our faithless Wagogo guides having deserted us, we marched a little distance farther north, and ascended the already described “upland wall,” where the aneroid at our camp indicated a height of 3800 feet—or about 950 feet above the plain on which Mtiwi, Mwenna, and Mukondoku are situated. The last night at Mtiwi was a disturbed one. The “floodgates of heaven” seemed literally opened for a period. After an hour’s rainfall, 6 inches of water covered our camp, and a slow current ran southerly. Every member of the expedition was distressed, and even the Europeans, lodged in tents, were not exempted from the evils of the night. My tent walls enclosed a little pool, banked by boxes of stores and ammunition. Hearing cries outside, I lit a candle, and my astonishment was great to find that my bed was an island in a shallow river, which, if it increased in depth and current, would assuredly carry me off south towards the Rufiji. My walking boots were miniature barks, floating to and fro on a turbid tide seeking a place of exit to the dark world of waters without. My guns, lashed to the centre pole, were stock deep in water. But the most comical sight was presented by Jack and Bull, perched back to back on the top of an ammunition-box, butting each other rearward, and snarling and growling for that scant portion of comfort.