At daybreak on February 9, accompanied by a much reduced detachment, we resumed our march: the poitrinaire Jemadar, who was crippled by the moonlight and by the cold dew, resolved, when thawed, to return with the rest of his company Chogwe-wards. An hour’s hard walking brought us to the foot of rugged Tongwe, the Great Hill. Ascending the flank of the N. Eastern spur, we found ourselves at 8 A.M., after five or six bad miles, upon the chine of a little ridge, with summer facing the sea, and a wintry wind blowing from the deep and forested valley to landward. Thence, pursuing the rugged incline, after another half-hour we entered the ‘fort,’ a crenellated, flat-roofed, and whitewashed room, 14 feet square, supported inside by smooth blackened rafters. It was tenanted by two Baloch, who figure on the muster-rolls as 20 men. They complain of loneliness and of the horrors: though several goats have been sacrificed, an obstinate demon still haunts the hill, and at times the weeping and wailing of distressed spirits makes their thin blood run chill from their hearts. Tongwe is the first offset of the massive mountain-terrace which forms the Region of Usumbara: here, in fact, begins the Highland block of Zangian and equatorial Africa, which culminates in Kilima-njaro and Doenyo Ebor, or Mount Kenia. It rises abruptly from the plain, and projects long spurs into the river valley, where the Panga-ni flows noisily through a rocky trough, and whence we could distinctly hear the roar of the celebrated waterfall. Situated N. West of (324°), and nine miles as the crow flies from, Chogwe, the hill summit, about 2000 feet above sea-level, is clothed with jungle, through which we had to cut a way with our swords, when seeking compass bearings of the Nguru hills. The thickness of the vegetation, which contains stunted cocoas, oranges grown wild and bitter, the Castor shrub, the Solanum, and the bird-pepper plant, with small berry, but very hot i’ the mouth, renders the eminence inaccessible from any but the Eastern and Northern flanks. The deserted grounds showed signs of former culture, and our negro guide sighed as he told us that his kinsmen had been driven by the Wazegura from their ancient seats to the far inner wilds. Around the Fort were slender plantations of maize and manioc springing amongst the ‘black jacks,’ which here, as in the Brazil, are never removed. The surface is a reddish, argillaceous, and vegetable soil, overlying grey and ruddy granite and schists. These rocks bear the ‘gold and silver complexion’ which was fatal to Colin Clout, the chivalrous ‘Shepherd of the Ocean,’ and the glistening spangles of mica still feed the fancy of the pauper Baloch mercenary. Below Tongwe hill, a deep hole in the northern face supplies the sweetest ‘rock-water,’ and upon the plain a boulder of well-weathered granite, striped with snowy quartz, contains two crevices ever filled by the purest springs. The climate appeared delicious,