out with delight, "Ah, look at that good omen!--now our journey
will be sure to be prosperous." After fording the stream, we sat down to
rest, and were visited by all the inhabitants, who were more naked than
any people we had yet seen. All the maidens, even at the age of puberty,
did not hesitate to stand boldly in front of us--for evil thoughts
were not in their minds. From this we rose over a stony hill to the
settlement of Vihembe, which, being the last on the Usui frontier,
induced me to give our guides three wires each, and four yards of
bindera, which Nasib said was their proper fee. Here Bombay's would-be,
but disappointed, father-in-law sent after us to say that he required
a hongo; Suwarora had never given his sanction to our quitting
his country; his hongo even was not settled. He wished, moreover,
particularly to see us; and if we did not return in a friendly manner,
an army would arrest our march immediately.

Chapter VIII. Karague

Relief from Protectors and Pillagers--The Scenery and Geology--Meeting
with the Friendly King Rumanika--His Hospitalities and Attention--His
Services to the Expedition--Philosophical and Theological Inquiries--The
Royal Family of Karague--The M-Fumbiro Mountain--Navigation of "The
Little Windermere"--The New-Moon Levee--Rhinoceros and
Hippopotamus Hunting--Measurement of a Fattened Queen--Political
Polygamy--Christmas--Rumours of Petherick's Expedition--Arrangements to
meet it--March to Uganda.

This was a day of relief and happiness. A load was removed from us
in seeing the Wasui "protectors" depart, with the truly cheering
information that we now had nothing but wild animals to contend with
before reaching Karague. This land is "neutral," by which is meant that
it is untenanted by human beings; and we might now hope to bid adieu
for a time to the scourging system of taxation to which we had been
subjected.

Gradually descending from the spur which separates the Lohugati valley
from the bed of the Lueru lo Urigi, or Lake of Urigi, the track led
us first through a meadow of much pleasing beauty, and then through a
passage between the "saddle-back" domes we had seen from the heights
above Lohugati, where a new geological formation especially attracted my
notice. From the green slopes of the hills, set up at a slant, as if
the central line of pressure on the dome top had weighed on the inside
plates, protruded soft slabs of argillaceous sandstone, whose laminae
present