most patiently agreed to wait and help me to land.

_24th March, 1866._--During the night it occurred to me that we should
be in a mess if after exploration and information from the natives we
could find no path, and when I mentioned this, Lieutenant Garforth
suggested that we should proceed to Kilwa, so at 5 A.M. I went up to
the dhow with Mr. Fane, and told the captain that we were going there.
He was loud in his protestations against this, and strongly
recommended the port of Mikindany, as quite near to Rovuma, Nyassa,
and the country I wished to visit, besides being a good landing-place,
and the finest port on the coast. Thither we went, and on the same
evening landed all our animals in Mikindany bay, which lies only
twenty-five miles N. of Rovuma. The _Penguin_ then left.

The Rovuma is quite altered from what it was when first we visited it.
It is probable that the freshets form banks inside the mouth, which
are washed out into the deep bay, and this periodical formation
probably has prevented the Arabs from using the Rovuma as a port of
shipment. It is not likely that Mr. May[4] would have made a mistake
if the middle were as shoal as now: he found soundings of three
fathoms or more.

[Illustration: Dhow used for Transport of Dr. Livingstone's Camels.]

_25th March, 1866._--I hired a house for four dollars a month and
landed all our goods from the dhow. The bay gives off a narrow
channel, about 500 yards wide and 200 yards long, the middle is deep,
but the sides are coral reefs and shoal: the deep part seems about 100
yards wide. Outside in the Bay of Mikindany there is no anchorage
except on the edge of the reef where the _Penguin_ got seven fathoms,