8th April, 1866.—­We spent the Sunday at a village called Nyangedi.  Here on the evening of the 7th April our buffaloes and camels were first bitten by the tsetse fly.[5] We had passed through some pieces of dense jungle which, though they offered no obstruction to foot-passengers, but rather an agreeable shade, had to be cut for the tall camels, and fortunately we found the Makonde of this village glad to engage themselves by the day either as woodcutters or carriers.  We had left many things with the jemidar from an idea that no carriers could be procured.  I lightened the camels, and had a party of woodcutters to heighten and widen the path in the dense jungle into which we now penetrated.  Every now and then we emerged on open spaces, where the Makonde have cleared gardens for sorghum, maize, and cassava.  The people were very much more taken up with the camels and buffaloes than with me.  They are all independent of each other, and no paramount chief exists.  Their foreheads may be called compact, narrow, and rather low; the alae nasi expanded laterally; lips full, not excessively thick; limbs and body well formed; hands and feet small; colour dark and light-brown; height middle size, and bearing independent.

10th April, 1866.—­We reached a village called Narri, lat. 10 deg. 23’ 14” S. Many of the men had touches of fever.  I gave medicine to eleven of them, and next morning all were better.  Food is abundant and cheap.  Our course is nearly south, and in “wadys,” from which, following the trade-road, we often ascend the heights, and then from the villages, which are on the higher land, we descend to another on the same wady.  No running water is seen; the people depend on wells for a supply.

11th April, 1866.—­At Tandahara we were still ascending as we went south; the soil is very fertile, with a good admixture of sand in it, but no rocks are visible.  Very heavy crops of maize and sorghum are raised, and the cassava bushes are seven feet in height.  The bamboos are cleared off them, spread over the space to be cultivated and burned to serve as manure.  Iron is very scarce, for many of the men appear with wooden spears; they find none here, but in some spots where an ooze issued from the soil iron rust appeared.  At each of the villages where we spent a night we presented a fathom of calico, and the headman always gave a fowl or two, and a basket of rice or maize.  The Makonde dialect is quite different from Swaheli, but from their intercourse with the coast Arabs many of the people here have acquired a knowledge of Swaheli.

[Illustration:  A Thorn-climber.]