48 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

sorts per man per diem. But beads are a very unsatisfactory medium of barter, as the fashion is always changing, and what is in the fashion one year may not be another; and negroes are as obstinate and unreasoning about their fashions as civilised nations.

Brass wire of the thickness of a small goose-quill is also used for barter, chiefly in the countries round the Victoria Lake, while in Uganda and Unyoro, cowries, which are brought from Zanzibar, are extensively circulated.

But to resume our journey. Some of the sick men being better, we were able to proceed on September 13th, our course being now about westsouth-west, following the bed of the stream, beside which we had encamped, for a mile or two ; then we rapidly ascended a high ridge, from which a fine view was obtained of the mountains round us. The valley which we had just left was filled with mist, out of which the mountain-peaks rose like islands, red and gold with the rays of the rising sun. Leaving this ridge, we crossed a narrow valley or ravine, and began toiling up the steep mountain-side along a winding stony path which gave our donkeys a good deal of trouble, and on gaining the summit our aneroids showed that we had risen 1200 feet above our camp in the Kitange valley. Instead, however, of finding ourselves on a ridge, we discovered that we were on the edge of a broad plateau which extended to the south-west