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Updated: July 17, 2025
Carrying water with us, we next marched half-way to the first settlement of Ugogo, and bivouacked again, to eat the last of our store of Mbumi grain. At length the greater famine lands had been spanned; but we were not in lands of plenty for the Wagogo we found, like their neighbours Wasagara, eating the seed of the calabash, to save their small stores of grain.
At dawn, when leaving Mdaburu River, the solemn warning had been given that we were about entering Ugogo; and as we left Kaniyaga village, with trumpet-like blasts of the guide's horn, we filed into the depths of an expanse of rustling Indian corn.
I had barely arrived at the village before the three men I despatched from Mvumi, Ugogo, entered, bringing with them from the generous American Consul a few bottles of champagne, a few pots of jam, and two boxes of Boston crackers. These were most welcome after my terrible experiences in the Makata Valley.
With the prospect before us of what was believed by many to be a real wilderness, our ardor was not abated, but was rather strengthened. The wilderness in Africa proves to be, in many instances, more friendly than the populated country. The kirangozi blew his kudu horn much more merrily on this morning than he was accustomed to do while in Ugogo. We were about to enter Magunda Mkali.
Everybody, I was pleased to hear, was surprised with both the quantity and quality of what I had been able to find for them; for, after the plundering in Ugogo, the immense consumption caused by such long delays on the road, the fearful prices I had had to pay for my porters' wages, the enormous taxes I had been forced to give both in Msalala and Uzinza, besides the constant thievings in camp, all of which was made public by the constantly-recurring tales of my men, nobody thought I had got anything left.
The boys then told me that a merchant, nickname Msopora, had left the boxes in Ugogo, in charge of some of those Arabs who were detained there, whilst he went rapidly round by the south, following up the Ruaha river to Usanga and Usenga, whence he struck across to Kaze. Sheikh Said, they said, sent his particular respects to me; he had heard of Grant's disasters with great alarm.
These animals are much about the same size and shape as the common Indian antelope, and, like them, roam about in large herds. The only marked difference between the two is in the shape of their horns, as may be seen by the woodcut; and in their colour, in which, in both sexes, the Ugogo antelopes resemble the picticandata gazelle of Tibet, except that the former have dark markings on the face.
As he was notorious among the Arabs for having assisted Manwa Sera in his war against Sheikh Sny bin Amer, high eulogies upon whom have been written by Burton, and subsequently by Speke, and as he was the second most powerful chief in Ugogo, of course he was quite a curiosity to me.
During the passage of the intervening desert, five out of the nine donkeys died, the cart having some time before been left behind. The expedition was now joined by several Arab caravans, so that the number of the party amounted to about four hundred souls, strong in guns, flags, horns sounding, drums, and noise. This host was to be led by Stanley and Sheikh Hamed through the dreaded Ugogo.
"No!" said he to me, emphatically, "better stop here two or three days, give your tired animals some rest; collect all the pagazis you can, fill your inside with fresh milk, sweet potatoes, beef, mutton, ghee, honey, beans, matama, maweri, and nuts; then, Inshallah! we shall go together through Ugogo without stopping anywhere."
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