_Sept._—Desertion had also been checked by voyaging Lake Victoria, instead of pursuing our journey by land, and troubles with Rwoma and the king of Usui had also been avoided. But when we received a check at the Muta Nzigé, it became necessary to visit Ujiji, and the long-sought-for opportunity to desert was thus presented to the disaffected, and those who had enlisted only for the sake of the advance-money given to them at Zanzibar. Among these cunning ones was Msenna, the terror of Zanzibar and the coast. He was renowned as a murderer, robber, and ruffian when he took service with me. This man was among the deserters at Ujiji. Unless the traveller in Africa exerts himself to keep his force intact, he cannot hope to perform satisfactory service. If he relaxes his watchfulness, it is instantly taken advantage of by the weak-minded and the indolent. Livingstone lost at least six years of time, and finally his life, by permitting his people to desert. If a follower left his service, he even permitted him to remain in the same village with him, without attempting to reclaim him, or to compel that service which he had bound himself to render at Zanzibar. The consequence of this excessive mildness was that he was left at last with only seven men, out of nearly seventy. His noble character has won from us a tribute of affection and esteem, but it has had no lasting good effect on the African. At the same time over-severity is as bad as over-gentleness in dealing with these men. What is required is pure, simple justice between man and man. The general infidelity and instability of the Wangwana arises, in great part, from their weak minds becoming a prey to terror of imaginary dangers. Thus, the Johanna men deserted Livingstone because they heard the terrible Mafitté were in the way; my runaways of Ujiji fled from the danger of being eaten by the Manyema. The slaves of Sungoro, the coast trader at Kagehyi, Usukuma, informed my people that Lake Victoria spread as far as the Salt Sea, that it had no end, and that the people on its shores loved the flesh of man better than that of goats. This foolish report made it a most difficult matter to man the exploring boat, and over a hundred swore by Allah that they knew nothing of rowing. A similar scene took place when about to circumnavigate the Tanganika, for the Arab slaves had spread such reports of Muzimus, hobgoblins, fiery meteors, terrible spirits, such as Kabogo, Katavi, Kateyé, and Wanpembé, that the teeth of Wanyamwezi and Wangwana chattered with fright. But no reports exercised such a terrible effect on their weak minds as the report of the Manyema cannibals, none were so greedily listened to, none more readily believed. The path which traders and their caravans follow to Manyema begins at Mtowa, in Uguha, and, continuing south a few miles over a series of hills, descends into the plain of the Rugumba river about halfway between the Lukuga river and the traders’ crossing-place.