The 400 who are to accompany us for a distance of sixty camps consist of about 250 men—Arabs, half-castes, Wangwana, 100 Wanyamwezi, Ruga- Ruga—mostly armed with spears and bows and arrows; others possess flintlocks. One hundred men consist of Barua, Manyema, Bakusu, Ba-Samba, and Utotera slaves; most of these slaves are armed with flintlocks, the others with formidable spears and shields There are also about fifty youths, ranging from ten to eighteen years of age, being trained by Tippu-Tib as gunbearers, house servants, scouts, cooks, carpenters, house-builders, blacksmiths, and leaders of trading parties. Meanwhile such young fellows are useful to him; they are more trustworthy than adults, because they look up to him as their father; and know that if they left him they would inevitably be captured by a less humane man. The remainder of this motley force consists of women, twenty of whom belong to the household of Tippu-Tib, all purchased with ivory, guns, cloth, or beads. Thirty women are the properties of the Arab dependants, chiefly half-castes and Wangwana, following Tippu-Tib. Two hundred and ten out of the 400 I have pledged to support until they shall return to Nyangwé, at the same rate of ration currency that may be distributed to the members of our Expedition. _Nov. 6._—On the 6th of November we drew nearer to the dreaded black and chill forest called Mitamba, and at last, bidding farewell to sunshine and brightness, entered it. We had made one mistake—we had not been up early enough. Tippu-Tib’s heterogeneous column of all ages were ahead of us, and its want of order and compactness became a source of trouble to us in the rear. We, accustomed to rapid marching, had to stand in our places minutes at a time, waiting patiently for an advance of a few yards, after which would come another halt, and another short advance to be again halted. And all this time the trees kept shedding their dew upon us like rain in great round drops. Every leaf seemed weeping. Down the boles and branches, creepers and vegetable cords, the moisture trickled and fell on us. Overhead the wide-spreading branches, in many interlaced strata, each branch heavy with broad thick leaves, absolutely shut out the daylight. We knew not whether it was a sunshiny day or a dull, foggy, gloomy day; for we marched in a feeble solemn twilight, such as you may experience in temperate climates an hour after sunset. The path soon became a stiff clayey paste, and at every step we splashed water over the legs of those in front, and on either side of us. To our right and left, to the height of about twenty feet, towered the undergrowth, the lower world of vegetation. The soil on which this thrives is a dark-brown vegetable humus, the débris of ages of rotting leaves and fallen branches, a very forcing-bed of vegetable life, which, constantly fed with moisture, illustrates in an astonishing degree the prolific power of the warm moist shades of the tropics.