The terrible undergrowth that here engrossed all the space under the shade of the pillared bombax and mast-like mvulé was a miracle of vegetation. It consisted of ferns, spear-grass, water-cane, and orchidaceous plants mixed with wild vines, cable thicknesses of the _Ficus elastica_, and a sprinkling of mimosas, acacias, tamarinds; llianes, palms of various species, wild date, _Raphia vinifera_, the elais, the fan, rattans, and a hundred other varieties, all struggling for every inch of space, and swarming upward with a luxuriance and density that only this extraordinary hothouse atmosphere could nourish. We had certainly seen forests before, but this scene was an epoch in our lives ever to be remembered for its bitterness; the gloom enhanced the dismal misery of our life; the slopping moisture, the unhealthy reeking atmosphere, and the monotony of the scenes; nothing but the eternal interlaced branches, the tall aspiring stems, rising from a tangle through which we had to burrow and crawl like wild animals, on hands and feet. _Nov. 16._—About 9 A.M. Tippu-Tib and the Arabs came to my hut at Wane- Kirumbu. After a long preamble, wherein he described the hardships of the march, Tippu-Tib concluded by saying that he had come to announce his wish that our contract should be dissolved! In a moment it flashed on my mind that a crisis had arrived. Was the Expedition to end here? I urged with all my powers the necessity for keeping engagements so deliberately entered into. “It is of no use,” Tippu-Tib replied, “to have two tongues. Look at it how you may, those sixty camps will occupy us at the rate we are travelling over a year, and it will take as much time to return. I never was in this forest before, and I had no idea there was such a place in the world; but the air is killing my people, it is insufferable. You will kill your own people if you go on. They are grumbling every day more and more. This country was not made for travel; it was made for vile pagans, monkeys, and wild beasts. I cannot go farther.” “Will Tippu-Tib then return to Nyangwé, and break his word and bond? What will all the Arabs at Nyangwé, Mwana Mamba, and Kasongo’s say when they hear that Tippu-Tib, who was the first Arab to penetrate Rua, proceeded only a few days with his friend, and then returned?” “Show me a man’s work, and I will do it.” “Well, look here, Tippu-Tib. The land on the west bank of the Lualaba is more open than this, and the road that Mtagamoyo took to go to the Lumami is on that side. Though the land is more open, I hear that the people are worse there than on this side. However, we are not Mtagamoyo, and they may behave better with us. Let us try the other side.