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With one move, by alternately crossing strips of forest and cultivation, studded here and there with small hills of granite, we forded the Qaunde nullah a tributary to the Gombe and entered the rich flat district of Mininga, where the gingerbread-palm grows abundantly. The greatest man we found here was a broken-down ivory merchant called Sirboko, who gave us a good hut to live in.
From this camp I despatched Ferajji, the cook, and Chowpereh to Unyanyembe, to bring the letters and medicines that were sent to me from Zanzibar, and meet us at Ugunda, while the next day we moved to our old quarters on the Gombe, where we were first introduced to the real hunter's paradise in Central Africa.
No thorny jungles and rank smelling swamps are here to daunt the hunter, and to sicken his aspirations after true sport! No hunter could aspire after a nobler field to display his prowess. Having settled the position of the camp, which overlooked one of the pools found in the depression of the Gombe creek, I took my double-barrelled smooth-bore, and sauntered off to the park-land.
We passed one dry nullah, the Gombe, which drains the regions westward into the Malagarazi river, some pools of water, and also two Wasukuma caravans, one of ivory destined for the coast, and the other conveying cattle to the Unyanyembe markets.
Hamdallah should work out those 27 doti of cloths before I reached the coast. Wednesday, October 4th, saw us travelling to the Gombe River, which is 4 h. 15 m. march from Manyara.
The Gombe, a long stretch of deep water, winding in and out of green groves, calm, placid, with lotus leaves lightly resting on its: surface, all pretty, picturesque, peaceful as a summer's dream, looked very inviting for a bath. I sought out the most shady spot under a wide- spreading mimosa, from which the ground sloped smooth as a lawn, to the still, clear water.
Keen-eyed fish-eagles and bustards poised on trees above the sinuous Gombe thought, and probably with good reason that I was after them; judging by the ready flight with which both species disappeared as they sighted my approach. Ah, no! nothing but hartebeest, zebra, giraffe, eland, and buffalo this day!
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