Field-beans, of a dark variety, were gathered by the bushel, and our men revelled in the juice of the sugar-cane.
We were now in S. Lat. 1° 22-1/2' and south of the watershed, all streams flowing towards the Ituri.
On the 28th we halted in East Indenduru, and sent three separate reconnoitering parties to obtain a knowledge of the general direction of the routes leading out of the settlement. We had tested the task of forming our own track through the forest long enough, and having discovered one which had been of such service to us, we were loth to revert to the tedious labour of travelling through jungles and undergrowth again.
Jephson's party proceeded S.S.E., and finally S., and at noon turned back to report. This road would not do for us. Rashid's party took one leading E.N.E., and finally north, through two small villages, one path returning southerly, another going north-easterly. Continuing his explorations along the latter, he came to a native camp. There was a slight skirmish; the natives fled, and he obtained a prize of nine fat goats, only five of which they brought to camp. This road would not suit us either.
A third search party was led by a famous scout, who discovered one path heading easterly. We resolved to adopt this.
On the 29th we left Indenduru and journeyed to Indepessu by noon, and in the afternoon sheered by a northerly path to the settlement of the Baburu, having accomplished a distance of ten miles in five hours, which was exceedingly fair walking.
On the next morning, after a march of an hour and a half along a tolerably good path, we emerged in front of an extensive clearing of about 240 acres. The trees were but recently cut. This marked the advent of a powerful tribe, or a late removal to new ground of old settlers of some numerical force, resolved upon securing many creature comforts. A captive woman of the Waburu led the way through the middle of this wide abattis, the very sight of which was appalling. An hour later we had crossed this, not without bruised shins and much trembling, and the path then led up an easy ascent up a prolonged span of a hill. The hollows on either side of it showed prodigious groves of plantains and many gardens, ill-kept, devoted to herbs and gourds. Within thirty minutes from the summit of the ascent we had reached an altitude that promised to give us shortly a more extended view than any we had been lately accustomed to, and we pressed gladly upwards, and soon entered a series of villages that followed the slope. A village of these parts always gave us a highway well trodden, from forty to sixty feet wide; in a series of this type of villages we should soon be able to pace a mile. We had passed through several fine separate long blocks of low structures, when the foremost of the advance guard was seen running swiftly down to meet me. He asked me to look towards the sunrise, and, turning my eyes in that direction, they were met by the gratifying sight of a fairly varied scene of pasture-land and forest, of level champaigns and grassy slopes of valleys and hills, rocky knolls and softly rounded eminences, a veritable "land of hills and valleys, that drinketh the rain of heaven." That the open country was well watered was indicated by the many irregular lines of woods which marked the courses of the streams, and by the clumps of trees, whose crowns just rose above their sloping banks.
