Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

;
less forests ;
APPENDIX. 379
one wise old party, who had about
800 slaves, and was just entering on a depopulated
district of ten days' march with them,
finding that I had lighted on him, came forward
and presented an ox and big bag of flour. This
man and brother added a dish of cooked meat
on seeing that we were really famishing. We
had pretty hard lines for 150 miles, could not
get food for either love or money :
and then the
depopulated part ! I accomplished it on the
morning of the eighth day with four companions;
our food was all expended on the sixth day, and
it was in hard plight that this good Samaritan
slave-trader became a friend indeed.' He
afterwards says,
'
Near the sea-coast the
country is covered with dense forest.
Farther
inland the forest is more open, but you seldom
see the horizon; then the country becomes
undulating, and, from the
crests of the earthen
waves you may see mountains all about. The
country about Ma,taka is Magomero magnified
a perfect rush of running rills flowing southwards
and northwards, forming the
Liendi and
Eovuma, which unite at Ngomano. I counted
fifteen of these burns in one day's march.'
Farther on, speaking of the slave-traders, he
says, ' Instead of a steamer, which I did my
best to get on the lake, two Arab dhows ply
their calling as slavers.
c c 2
The owner of one has