for food only on Grant's gun and
my own; still we made half-way to the Mdaburu nullah, taking some
of Mamba's out to camp with us, as he promised to take letters and
specimens down to the coast for us, provided I paid him some cloths as
ready money down, and promised some more to be paid at Zanzibar. These
letters eventually reached home, but not the specimens.

The rains were so heavy that the whole country was now flooded, but we
pushed on to the nullah by relays, and pitched on its left bank. In the
confusion of the march, however, we lost many more porters, who at the
same time relieved us of their loads, by slipping off stealthily into
the bush.

The fifteenth was a forced halt, as the stream was so deep and so
violent we could not cross it. To make the best of this very unfortunate
interruption, I now sent on two men to Kaze, with letters to Musa and
Sheikh Snay, both old friends on the former expedition, begging them
to send me sixty men, each carrying thirty rations of grain, and some
country tobacco. The tobacco was to gratify my men, who said of all
things they most wanted to cheer them was something to smoke. At the
same time I sent back some other men to Khoko, with cloth to buy grain
for present consumption, as some of my porters were already reduced to
living on wild herbs and white ants. I then sent all the remaining men,
under the directions of Bombay and Baraka, to fell a tall tree with
hatchets, on the banks of the nullah, with a view to bridging it; but
the tree dropped to the wrong side, and thwarted the plan. The rain
ceased on the 17th, just as we put the rain-gauge out, which was at
once interpreted to be our Uganga, or religious charm, and therefore the
cause of its ceasing. It was the first fine day for a fortnight, so we
were only too glad to put all our things out to dry, and rejoiced to
think of the stream's subsiding. My men who went back to Khoko for grain
having returned with next to nothing--though, of course, they had spent
all the cloths--I sent back another batch with pretty cloths, as it was
confidently stated that grain was so scarce there, nothing but the best
fabrics would but it. This also proved a dead failure; but although
animals were very scarce, Grant relieved our anxiety by shooting a zebra
and an antelope.

After five halts, we forded the stream, middle deep, and pushed forwards
again, doing short stages of four or five miles a-day, in the greatest
possible confusion; fo