KAGEI TO TABORA AND BACK. 127 and with these men, three servants, and the two mail runners, I left Kagei on January 19th. I followed pretty much the same route as that which O'Neill and I took on our journey up the previous year. The caravan was small, and the men lightly laden, so we travelled rapidly, spite of very wet weather, and reached Semwi on the 28th, thus doing in nine days a distance which occupied twenty-five days on my previous journey. I rested one day at Sernwi, being delayed by the flooded state of the river Monungu. When I arrived at the village the chief was making up a caravan to go down to the coast, and I was witness to the ceremony of " doctoring " it, to make it " lucky." The intending travellers having been collected in the open square of the village to the sound of a drum, were inspected by a haggard old mganga, or sorcerer, who had been making " medicine " for them. This medicine was a dirty white liquid contained in a calabash, and of which he took a good mouthful and squirted it over each of the party ; whereupon the women of the place, who had assembled to watch the operation, set up a loud yell, and then began marching about the village singing and howling, a performance which they kept up, to my great discomfort, for several hours. Next morning there was an exciting leopard hunt close by. During the night a leopard had got into a neighbouring village, and all the people had turned out to try and kill it. The