“We have had a fearful time of it to-day in these woods, and Bwana Shokka, who has visited this region before, declares with superior pride that what we have experienced as yet is only a poor beginning to the weeks upon weeks which we shall have to endure. Such crawling, scrambling, tearing through the damp, dank jungles, and such height and depth of woods!... Once we obtained a side-long view from a tree on the crown of a hill, over the wild woods on our left, which swept in irregular waves of branch and leaf down to the valley of the Lualaba. Across the Lualaba, on the western bank, we looked with wistful eyes on what appeared to be green grassy plains. Ah, what a contrast to that which we had to endure! It was a wild weird scene, this outlook we obtained of the top of the leafy world!... It was so dark sometimes in the woods that I could not see the words, recording notes of the track, which I pencilled in my note-book. At 3.30 P.M. we arrived in camp, quite worn out with the struggle through the intermeshed bush, and almost suffocated with the heavy atmosphere. Oh, for a breath of mountain air!” “_November 9, 1876._—N. ½ W., ten and a half miles’ march to Kiussi, Uregga. “Another difficult day’s work in the forest and jungle. Our Expedition is no longer the compact column which was my pride. It is utterly demoralized. Every man scrambles as he best may through the woods; the path, being over a clayey soil, is so slippery that every muscle is employed to assist our progress. The toes grasp the path, the head bears the load, the hand clears the obstructing bush, the elbow puts aside the sapling. Yesterday the boatmen complained so much that I organized all the chiefs into a pioneer party, with axes to clear the path. Of course we could not make a wide road. There were many prostrate giants fallen across the path, each with a mountain of twigs and branches, compelling us to cut roads through the bush a long distance to get round them. My boat-bearers are utterly wearied out.” [Illustration: UREGGA HOUSE.]