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Mpwapwa, though the traveller from the coast will feel grateful for the milk it furnished after being so long deprived of it, will be kept in mind as a most remarkable place for earwigs. In my tent they might be counted by thousands; in my slung cot they were by hundreds; on my clothes they were by fifties; on my neck and head they were by scores.
They reported that William L. Farquhar, whom I left sick at Mpwapwa, Usagara, and his cook, were dead. Farquhar, I was told, died a few days after I had entered Ugogo, his cook died a few weeks later. My first impulse was for revenge.
For nine hours we held on our way, starting with noisy shouts the fierce rhinoceros, the timid quagga, and the herds of antelopes which crowd the jungles of this broad salina. On the 7th, amid a pelting rain, we entered Mpwapwa, where my Scotch assistant, Farquhar, died.
When they arrived at a place named Mpwapwa, it seemed such a good field for missionary labour that one of their number, Mr. Clark, was left to begin missionary work there, whilst the rest pressed forward to Uganda. The great lake at last came in sight, and they were cheered by the sight of its blue waters.
The following morning found us much fatigued after the long marches from Ugombo, and generally disposed to take advantage of the precious luxuries Mpwapwa offered to caravans fresh from the fly-plagued lands of the Waseguhha and Wadoe.
Within five hours from Ugombo the mountain range deflected towards the north-east, while we continued on a north-westerly course, heading for the lofty mountain-line of the Mpwapwa. To our left towered to the blue clouds the gigantic Rubeho.
On reaching Mpwapwa the Chief Lencolo positively refused to take charge of the white man unless an interpreter was left with him, and Jako, who was the only one of the party besides Bombay and Selim who could speak English, was ordered to remain in that capacity. The expedition was now about to enter Ugogo.
"Oh, if you don't, perhaps you would not object to me smoking, in order to assist digestion?" "Ngema good go on, master." Then began the questions, the gossipy, curious, serious, light questions: "How came the master? "By the Mpwapwa road." "It is good. Was the Makata bad?" "Very bad." "What news from Zanzibar?"
Nor do I entertain the least doubt, after a two days' exploration of the neighbourhood, especially of the low plain at the western end, that this Lake of Ugombo is but the tail of what was once a large body of water equal in extent to the Tanganika; and, after ascending half way up Ugombo Peak, this opinion was confirmed when I saw the long-depressed line of plain at its base stretching towards the Mpwapwa Mountains thirty miles off, and thence round to Marenga Mkali, and covering all that extensive surface of forty miles in breadth, and an unknown length.
We had performed the extraordinary march of 338 English statute miles from the 14th of March to the 7th of April, or within twenty-four days, inclusive of halts, which was a little over fourteen miles a day. Leukole, the chief of Mpwapwa, with whom I left Farquhar, gave the following account of the death of the latter:
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