We arrived in the mouth of the Pangani river on the 3d February; and, immediately on landing, were met by all the grandees of the place, who welcomed us as big men, and escorted us to a large stone house in the town overlooking the river. On the way to this domicile, a number of black singers were formed in line to serenade us, and they danced and sang in real negro peculiarity, with such earnest constancy that, although a novel sight, we were glad to be rid of them long before they were tired of performing. All inquisitive about other people's concerns, the Panganyites at once eagerly busied themselves to find out what our intentions were in coming there, and accordingly began to speculate on what they could make out of us. First the Diwans (head-men) wanted us to pay our footing in the town; but that only provoking a sharp rebuff, they began a system of "making difficulties." To go to the Kilimandjaro we must have a large and expensive escort, or nobody would go with us. But this we were not persistent in, for two reasons: in the first place, having frittered away so much time at Mombas, and in inspecting ruins on the way from it, we had no time left ere the kuzi, or little rains precursory to the great monsoon, which would shortly set in on the high lands near the Great Mountain, would fall and impede our progress; and, in the second, we were short of cash. Next we contemplated a flying trip to Fuga, for which alternative Sultan Majid had provided us with introductions to the king, Kimuéri, living there; and this, of course, being known to the people through the medium of Sheikh Said, they at once beset our doors to meet our proposals and make fresh difficulties. King Kimuéri's son, who happened to be here on his way to Zanzibar, presuming we had presents for the king, mildly begged us to give them up to him at once, he securing us a passage to his father,--a cool request, which, of course, was just as coolly rejected. And now everybody, evidently actuated by him, stood in our way at every turn. We must not go the straight road, as the Wazégura living on the right bank of the Pangani river were "out," and in open hostilities with the Wasumbara, and would intercept our passage; and, instead, they proposed our going _viâ_ Tangata, a much longer route, but open to us if we only took a sufficient number of men, and paid handsomely for the convenience. Considering that the value attachable to the undertaking would be magnified in our minds in proportion to the amount of obstacles which had to be surmounted, difficulty upon difficulty was now conjured up and produced as fast as they thought they were working upon our inclinations. Sometimes our advisers would go, and then the opposite. They were verily as coy in their advancements and retractions as a woman who, in love, gives and takes with a wavering man on whom she has set her heart at a time when he is fearful of giving way to her little seductive artifices.