The Few Huts That Existed In This Spot Were Mere Ruins.

Clouds had portended rain, and down it came, as it usually did once in every twenty-four hours.

However, that passed away by the next morning, and the day broke discovering us about as wet and wretched as we were accustomed to be. I now started off four of my men with the boatmen and the interpreter Bacheeta to the nearest village, to inquire whether our guide Rabonga had arrived with our riding oxen, as our future travelling was to be on land, and the limit of our navigation must have been well known to him. After some hours the people returned, minus the boatmen, with a message from the headman of a village they had visited, that the oxen were there, but not the guide Rabonga, who had remained at Magungo, but that the animals should be brought to us that evening, together with porters to convey the luggage. In the evening a number of people arrived, bringing some plantain cider and plantains as a present from the headman; and promising that, upon the following morning, we should be conducted to his village.

The next day we started, but not until the afternoon, as we had to await the arrival of the headman, who was to escort us. Our oxen were brought, and if we looked wretched, the animals were a match. They had been bitten by the fly, thousands of which were at this spot. Their coats were staring, ears drooping, noses running, and heads hanging down; all the symptoms of fly-bite, together with extreme looseness of the bowels. I saw that it was all up with our animals. Weak as I was myself, I was obliged to walk, as my ox could not carry me up the steep inclination, and I toiled languidly to the summit of the cliff. It poured with rain. Upon arrival at the summit we were in precisely the same parklike land that characterises Chopi and Unyoro, but the grass was about seven feet high; and from the constant rain, and the extreme fertility of the soil, the country was choked with vegetation. We were now above the Murchison Falls, and we heard the roaring of the water beneath us to our left. We continued our route parallel to the river above the Falls, steering east; and a little before evening we arrived at a small village belonging to the headman who accompanied us. I was chilled and wet; my wife had fortunately been carried on her litter, which was protected by a hide roofing. Feverish and exhausted, I procured from the natives some good acid plums, and refreshed by these I was able to boil my thermometer and take the altitude.

On the following morning we started, the route as before parallel to the river, and so close that the roar of the rapids was extremely loud. The river flowed in a deep ravine upon our left. We continued for a day's march along the Somerset, crossing many ravines and torrents, until we turned suddenly down to the left, and arriving at the bank we were to be transported to an island called Patooan, that was the residence of a chief.

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