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Updated: June 10, 2025
A little lighter and much more comfortable for the good riddance of those grumbling "Tots," we worked up to and soon breasted the stiff ascent of the Mabruki Pass, which we surmounted without much difficult. This concluded the first range of these Usagara hills; and once over, we dropped down to the elevated valley of Makata, where we halted two days to shoot.
From the top of the bank bordering on the valley, a good view was obtainable of the Uraguru hills, and the top of a very distant cone to its northward; but I could see no signs of any river joining the kingani on its left, though on the former expedition I heard that the Mukondokua river, which was met with in Usagara, joined the Kingani close to Sagesera, and actually formed its largest head branch.
The hill-tops were bared of their bosky crowns, and revealed their rocky natures bleached white by rain and sun. Nguru Peak, the loftiest of the Usagara cones, stood right shoulderwards of us as we ascended the long slope of dun-grey soil which rose beyond the brown Mukondokwa on the left.
Crossing a branch of the Rudewa, and emerging from the dank reedy grass crowding the western bank, the view consisted of an immense sheet of water topped by clumps of grass tufts and foliage of thinly scattered trees, bounded ten or twelve miles off by the eastern front of the Usagara mountain range. The acme of discomfort and vexation was realized on the five-mile march from the Rudewa branch.
It is the main feeder of the Wami river, which empties into the sea between the ports of Saadani and Whinde. About ten miles north-east of the Makata crossing, the Great Makata, the Little Makata, a nameless creek, and the Rudewa river unite; and the river thus formed becomes known as the Wami. Throughout Usagara the Wami is known as the Mukondokwa.
This day, all together again, we rose the first spurs of the well-wooded Usagara hills, amongst which the familiar bamboo was plentiful, and at night we bivouacked in the jungle.
From the top of this enbankment we gain the first sight of the East Coast Range, due west of us, represented by the high elephant's-back hill, Mkambaku, in Usagara, which, joining Uraguru, stretches northwards across the Pangani river to Usumbara and the Kilimandjaro, and southwards, with a westerly deflection, across the Lufiji to Southern N'yassa.
It seems that the Wagogo do not exact blackmail of those caravans who intend only to trade in their own country, or have no intention of passing beyond their own frontier. Leaving Kulabi, we traversed a naked, red, loamy plain, over which the wind from the heights of Usagara, now rising a bluish-black jumble of mountains in our front, howled most fearfully.
The view consisted of fields of grain ripening, which followed the contour of the plain, and which rustled merrily before the morning breeze that came laden with the chills of Usagara. At 8 A.M. we had arrived at the frontier village of Unyamwezi, Eastern Tura, which we invaded without any regard to the disposition of the few inhabitants who lived there.
To the northward can be seen some low hills, which are occupied by Wahumba, a subtribe of the warlike Masai; and on the west is the large forest-wilderness of Mgunda Mkhali. Ugogo, lying under the lee side of the Usagara hills, is comparatively sterile.
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