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Shortly after this we emerged from the forest, and entered a mbuga, or plain, in which we saw a couple of giraffes, whose long necks were seen towering above a bush they had been nibbling at. This sight was greeted with a shout; for we now knew we had entered the game country, and that near the Gombe creek, or river, where we intended to halt, we should see plenty of these animals.
The adventures of the day were over; the azure of the sky had changed to a dead grey; the moon was appearing just over the trees; the water of the Gombe was like a silver belt; hoarse frogs bellowed their notes loudly by the margin of the creek; the fish-eagles uttered their dirge-like cries as they were perched high on the tallest tree; elands snorted their warning to the herds in the forest; stealthy forms of the carnivora stole through the dark woods outside of our camp.
From one of the battles before Richmond, he was conveyed to a North Carolina hospital, where he died from his wounds. On the 7th of February we arrived at the Gombe, and camped near one of its largest lakes. This lake is probably several miles in length, and swarms with hippopotami and crocodiles.
From the hill and ridge of Utende sloped a forest for miles and miles westerly, which was terminated by a grand and smooth-topped ridge rising 500 or 600 feet above the plain. A four hours' march, on the 12th of October, brought us to a nullah similar to the Gombe, which, during the wet season, flows to the Gombe River, and thence into the Malagarazi River.
On surmounting the saddle over which the road from the valley of Kwihara leads to Tabora, the plain on which the Arab settlement is situated lay before us, one expanse of dun pasture land, stretching from the base bf the hill on our left as far as the banks of the northern Gombe, which a few miles beyond Tabora heave into purple-coloured hills and blue cones.
This new plan was adopted after consulting with Asmani, the guide. We were now in Ukonongo, having entered this district when we crossed the Gombe creek. The next day after arriving at Marefu we plunged westward, in view of the villagers, and the Arab ambassador, who kept repeating until the last moment that we should "certainly catch it."
I brought them to at last by starvation, and then we went on. Dipping down into a valley between two clusters of granitic hills, beautifully clothed with trees and grass, studded here and there with rich plantations, we entered the district of Usagari, and on the second day forded the Gombe nullah again in its upper course, called Kuale.
Added to which, as I surmounted one of the numerous small knolls, I saw herds after herds of buffalo and zebra, giraffe and antelope, which sent the blood coursing through my veins in the excitement of the moment, as when I first landed on African soil. We crept along the plain noiselessly to our camp on the banks of the sluggish waters of the Gombe. Here at last was the hunter's Paradise!
For the first few miles there were villagers, but after that a long tract of jungle, inhabited chiefly by antelopes and rhinoceros. It was wilder in appearance than most parts of Unyamuezi. In this jungle a tributary nullah to the Gombe, called Nurhungure, is the boundary-line between the great Country of the Moon and the kingdom of Uzinza.
A little before camping we saw a herd of nimba, or pallah; I had the good fortune to shoot one, which was a welcome addition to our fast diminishing store of dried meats, prepared in our camp on the Gombe. By the quantity of bois de vaches, we judged buffaloes were plentiful here, as well as elephant and rhinoceros.
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