30th.--The caravan started at 6 A.M., and travelled four miles northwards, amidst villages and cultivation. From this point, on facing to the left, I could discern a sheet of water, about four miles from me, which ultimately proved to be a creek, and the most southern point of the N'yanza, which, as I have said before, the Arabs described to us as the Ukéréwé Sea.[57] We soon afterwards descended into a grassy and jungly depression, and arrived at a deep, dirty, viscid nullah (a watercourse that only runs in wet weather), draining the eastern country into the southern end of the creek. To cross this (which I shall name Jordan) was a matter of no small difficulty, especially for the donkeys, whose fording seemed quite hopeless, until the Jemadar, assisted by two other Beluches, with blows and threats made the lazy pagazis work, and dragged them through the mud by sheer force. This operation lasted so long that, after crossing, we made for the nearest village in the Uvira district, and completed a journey of eight miles. The country to the eastward appeared open and waving, but to the north and far west very hilly. The ground is fertile, and the flocks and herds very abundant. Hippopotami frequent the nullah at night, and reside there during the rainy season; but at this, the dry half of the year, they retreat to the larger waters of the creek. Rhinoceroses are said to pay nightly visits to fields around the villages, and commit sad havoc on the crops. The nullah, running from the south-east, drains the land in that direction; but a river, I hear, rising in the Msalala district, draws off the water from the lays we have recently been crossing, to the westward of our track, where its course lies, and empties it into the creek on the opposite side to where the nullah debouches. 31st.--On hearing that a shorter track than the Sukuma one usually frequented by the Arabs led to Muanza, the place Sheikh Snay advised my going to, I started by it at 8 A.M.; and after following it west-ward down the nullah's right bank a few miles, turned up northwards, and continued along the creek to a village, eight miles distant, at the farther end of the Urima district, where we took up our quarters. The country has a mixed and large population of smiths, agriculturists, and herdsmen, residing in the flats and depressions which lie between the scattered little hills. During the rainy season, when the lake swells and the country becomes super-saturated, the inundations are so great that all travelling becomes suspended. The early morning was wasted by the unreasonable pagazis in the following absurd manner.