Rising Up From The Deep Valley Of Mdunhwi We Had To Cross Another
High Ridge Before Descending To The Also
Deep valley of Chongue,
as picturesque a country as the middle heights of the Himalayas,
dotted on the ridges and
Spur-slopes by numerous small conical-
hut villages; but all so poor that we could not, had we wanted
it, have purchased provisions for a day's consumption.
Leaving this valley, we rose to the table of Manyovi, overhung
with much higher hills, looking, according to the accounts of our
Hottentots, as they eyed the fine herds of cattle grazing on the
slopes, so like the range in Kafraria, that they formed their
expectations accordingly, and appeared, for the first time since
leaving the coast, happy at the prospect before them, little
dreaming that such rich places were seldom to be met with. The
Wanyamuezi porters even thought they had found a paradise, and
forthwith threw down their loads as the villagers came to offer
them grain for sale; so that, had I not had the Wanguana a little
under control, we should not have completed our distance that
day, and so reached Manyonge, which reminded me, by its ugliness,
of the sterile Somali land. Proceeding through the semi-desert
rolling table-land - in one place occupied by men who build their
villages in large open squares of flat-topped mud huts, which,
when I have occasion to refer to them in future, I shall call by
their native name tembe - we could see on the right hand the
massive mountains overhanging the Mukondokua river, to the front
the western chain of these hills, and to the left the high crab-
claw shaped ridge, which, extending from the western chain,
circles round conspicuously above the swelling knolls which lie
between the two main rocky ridges.
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