29th December, 1866.—­We remain a day at Malambwe, but get nothing save a little maere,[42] which grates in the teeth and in the stomach.  To prevent the Mazitu starving them they cultivate small round patches placed at wide intervals in the forest, with which the country is covered.  The spot, some ten yards or a little more in diameter, is manured with ashes and planted with this millet and pumpkins, in order that should Mazitu come they may be unable to carry off the pumpkins, or gather the millet, the seed of which is very small.  They have no more valour than the other Africans, but more craft, and are much given to falsehood.  They will not answer common questions except by misstatements, but this may arise in our case from our being in disfavour, because we will not sell all our goods to them for ivory.

30th December, 1866.—­Marched for Chitemba’s, because it is said he has not fled from the Mazitu, and therefore has food to spare.  While resting, Moerwa, with all his force of men, women, and dogs, came up, on his way to hunt elephants.  The men were furnished with big spears, and their dogs are used to engage the animal’s attention while they spear it; the women cook the meat and make huts, and a smith goes with them to mend any spear that may be broken.

We pass over level plateaux on which the roads are wisely placed, and do not feel that we are travelling in a mountainous region.  It is all covered with dense forest, which in many cases is pollarded, from being cut for bark cloth or for hunting purposes.  Masuko fruit abounds.  From the cisalpinae and gum-copal trees bark cloth is made.

We now come to large masses of haematite, which is often ferruginous:  there is conglomerate too, many quartz pebbles being intermixed.  It seems as if when the lakes existed in the lower lands, the higher levels gave forth great quantities of water from chalybeate fountains, which deposited this iron ore.  Grey granite or quartz with talc in it or gneiss lie under the haematite.

The forest resounds with singing birds, intent on nidification.  Francolins abound, but are wild.  “Whip-poor-wills,” and another bird, which has a more laboured treble note and voice—­“Oh, oh, oh!” Gay flowers blush unseen, but the people have a good idea of what is eatable and what not.  I looked at a woman’s basket of leaves which she had collected for supper, and it contained eight or ten kinds, with mushrooms and orchidaceous flowers.  We have a succession of showers to-day, from N.E. and E.N.E.  We are uncertain when we shall come to a village, as the Babisa will not tell us where they are situated.  In the evening we encamped beside a little rill, and made our shelters, but we had so little to eat that I dreamed the night long of dinners I had eaten, and might have been eating.

I shall make this beautiful land better known, which is an essential part of the process by which it will become the “pleasant haunts of men.”  It is impossible to describe its rich luxuriance, but most of it is running to waste through the slave-trade and internal wars.