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I sunk up to my neck in deep holes in the Stygian ooze caused by elephants, and had to tramp through the oozy beds of the Rungwa sources with any clothes wet and black with mud and slime. Decency forbade that I should strip; and the hot sun would also blister my body.
The immense prospect before which we are suddenly ushered is most varied; exclusive of conical hills and ambitious flat-topped and isolated mountains, we are in view of the watersheds of the Rungwa River, which empties into the Tanganika south of where we stand, and of the Malagarazi River, which the Tanganika receives, a degree or so north of this position.
The Rungwa River, I am informed, is considered as a boundary line between the country of Usowa on the north, and Ufipa on the south. We had barely completed the construction of our camp defences when some of the men were heard challenging a small party of natives which advanced towards our camp, headed by a man who, from his garb and head-dress, we knew was from Zanzibar.
When your men come back, I shall immediately start for Ufipa; then, crossing the Rungwa River, I shall strike south, and round the extremity of the Tanganika. Then, a south-east course will take me to Chicumbi's, on the Luapula. On crossing the Luapula, I shall go direct west to the copper-mines of Katanga. Eight days south of Katanga, the natives declare the fountains to be.
A march of nearly five hours through this picturesque country brought us to the Mpokwa River, one of the tributaries of the Rungwa, and to a village lately deserted by the Wazavira. The huts were almost all intact, precisely as they were left by their former inhabitants. In the gardens were yet found vegetables, which, after living so long on meat, were most grateful to us.
A single but lengthy latitudinal ridge serves as a dividing line to the watershed of the Rungwa and Malagarazi; and a score of miles or so further west of this ridge rises another, which runs north and south.
We camped on this day in the jungle, close to a narrow ravine with a marshy bottom, through the oozy, miry contents of which the waters from the watershed of the Rungwa slowly trickled southward towards the Rikwa Plain.
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