74 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

through which the road wound for many miles; then we entered another plain, crossing late in the day the Eiver Nange, a stream about eighty yards wide, with a uniform depth of three feet, and camped on its western bank. December 10th was our last day in the jungle. We were on the move before daylight, and for the first three hours made very slow progress. There had been heavy rains the previous day, and the soil, which was a tenacious loam, had become a soft sticky mass into which we sank ankle-deep at every step. After a time, however, the ground got harder, and we marched on more briskly ; soon the jungle began to get less, and the trees disappeared, only underwood being left, a sure sign of the proximity of man : and at last we emerged on the site of a ruined village, of which no trace remained except a gigantic hedge of a species of euphorbia (E. antiquoruni), which had once surrounded the village. Two or three miles more brought us to a small collection of tembes called Hambu. Here our whole caravan of Wanyamwezi porters took leave of us, this being the point to which they had engaged to come. They arrayed themselves in their best, coloured pockethandkerchiefs, large-patterned prints and scarlet blankets, and having bid us most affectionate adieux, left us.

On inquiring for O'Neill we found that he was at another village some three miles from there,