With the chief’s men we did not get on well, but with himself all was easy.  His men demanded prepayment for canoes to cross the river Looembe; but in the way that he put it, the request was not unreasonable, as he gave a man to smooth our way, and get canoes, or whatever else was needed, all the way to Chibue’s.  I gave a cloth when he put it thus, and he presented a goat, a spear ornamented with copper-wire, abundance of meal, and beer, and numbo; so we parted good friends, as his presents were worth the cloth.

Holding a north-westerly course we met with the Chikosho flowing west, and thence came to the Likombe by a high ridge called Losauswa, which runs a long way westward.  It is probably a watershed between streams going to the Chambeze and those that go to the northern rivers.

We have the Locopa, Looembe, Nikelenge, then Lofubu or Lovu; the last goes north into Liembe, but accounts are very confused.  The Chambeze rises in the Mambive country, which is north-east of Moamba, but near to it.

The forest through which we passed was dense, but scrubby; trees unhealthy and no drainage except through oozes.  On the keel which forms a clay soil the rain runs off, and the trees attain a large size.  The roads are not soured by the slow process of the ooze drainage.  At present all the slopes having loamy or sandy soil are oozes, and full to overflowing; a long time is required for them to discharge their contents.  The country generally may be called one covered with forest.

6th March, 1867.—­We came after a short march to a village on the Molilanga, flowing east into the Looembe, here we meet with bananas for the first time, called, as in Lunda, nkonde.  A few trophies from Mazitu are hung up:  Chitapangwa had twenty-four skulls ornamenting his stockade.  The Babemba are decidedly more warlike than any of the tribes south of them:  their villages are stockaded, and have deep dry ditches round them, so it is likely that Mochimbe will be effectually checked, and forced to turn his energies to something else than to marauding.

Our man from Moamba here refused to go further, and we were put on the wrong track by the headman wading through three marshes, each at least half a mile broad.  The people of the first village we came to shut their gates on us, then came running after us; but we declined to enter their village:  it is a way of showing their independence.  We made our sheds on a height in spite of their protests.  They said that the gates were shut by the boys; but when I pointed out the boy who had done it, he said that he had been ordered to do it by the chief.  If we had gone in now we should have been looked on as having come under considerable obligations.

8th March, 1867.—­We went on to a village on the Looembe, where the people showed an opposite disposition, for not a soul was in it—­all were out at their farms.  When the good wife of the place came she gave us all huts, which saved us from a pelting shower.  The boys herding the goats did not stir as we passed down the sides of the lovely valley.  The Looembe looks a sluggish stream from a distance.  The herdsman said we were welcome, and he would show the crossing next day, he also cooked some food for us.