The cotton-plant is as fine here as at Unyanyembé or Ujiji, and anything would grow with only the trouble of throwing down the seed. It is a great pity that the country is not in better hands. From all I can gather, there is no fixed revenue paid to these sultans; all their perquisites are occasional hongos received from travellers; a percentage on all foreign seizures, whether by battle or plunder; and a certain part of all windfalls, such as a share of the sportsman's game-bag, in the shape of elephants' tusks or flesh, or the skins of any wild animals; otherwise they live by the sweat of the brow of their slaves, in tilling their ground, tending their cattle, or trafficking for them in slaves and ivory. It seems destined that I should never reach the goal of my ambition. To-day the Jemadar finds himself too unwell to march, and two other Beluches say the same. This is an effectual obstacle; for the guard declares itself too weak to divide, and the sultan blows on the fire of my mortification by saying that these are troubled times, and advises our keeping all together. He says that his differences have been going on these five years with his eldest brother, and now he wishes to bring them to a crisis, which he proposes doing after my return, when he will obtain powder from me, and will have the preponderating influence of Arab opinion brought to bear in his favour by the aid of their guns--an impressive mode which Africa has of proving right in its own way. 22d.--After much groaning and grumbling, I got the sick men on their legs by 7 A.M., and we marched eight miles to Senagongo, the boma[56] (palisade) of Sultan Kanoni, Kurua's second brother. These two younger brothers side together against the eldest. They are all by different mothers, and think the father's property should fairly be divided among them. It is a glaring instance of the bad effects of a plurality of wives; and being contrary to our constitutional laws of marriage, I declined giving an opinion as to who was right or wrong.