and it is probable my
people and others from the coast will begin to travel after three days
of feasting. It has been so rainy I could have done little though I had
had people.

_22nd January, 1871._--A party is reported to be on the way hither. This
is likely enough, but reports are so often false that doubts arise.
Mohamad says he will give men when the party of Hassani comes, or when
Dugumbe arrives.

_24th January, 1871._--Mohamad mentioned this morning that Moene-mokaia,
and Moeneghera his brother, brought about thirty slaves from Katanga to
Ujiji, affected with swelled thyroid glands or "_Goitre_," and that
drinking the water of Tanganyika proved a perfect cure to all in a very
few days. Sometimes the swelling went down in two days after they began
to use the water, in their ordinary way of cooking, washing, and
drinking: possibly some ingredient of the hot fountain that flows into
it affects the cure, for the people on the Lofubu, in Nsama's country,
had the swelling. The water in bays is decidedly brackish, while the
body of Tanganyika is quite fresh.

The odour of putrid elephant's meat in a house kills parrots: the
Manyuema keep it till quite rotten, but know its fatal effects on their
favourite birds.

_27th January, 1871._--Safari or caravan reported to be near, and my men
and goods at Ujiji.

_28th January, 1871._--A safari, under Hassani and Ebed, arrived with
news of great mortality by cholera (_Towny_), at Zanzibar, and my
"brother," whom I conjecture to be Dr. Kirk, has fallen. The men I wrote
for have come to Ujiji, but did not know my whereabouts; when told by
Katomba's men they will come here, and bring my much longed for letters
and goods. 70,000 victims in Zanzibar alone from cholera, and it spread
inland to the Masoi and Ugogo! Cattle shivered, and fell dead: the
fishes in the sea died in great numbers; here the fowls were first
seized and died, but not from cholera, only from its companion. Thirty
men perished in our small camp, made still smaller by all the able men
being off trading at the Metamba, and how many Manyuema died we do not
know; the survivors became afraid of eating the dead.

Formerly the Cholera kept along the sea-shore, now it goes far inland,
and will spread all over Africa; this we get from Mecca filth, for
nothing was done to prevent the place being made a perfect cesspool of
animals' guts and ordure of men.[11] A piece of skin bound round the
chest of a man, and half