Hamees is very anxious that I should remain a few days longer, till Kasonso’s son, Kampamba, comes with certain information, and then he will see to our passing safely to Chiwere’s village from Kasonso’s.  All have confidence in this last-named chief as an upright man.

1st June, 1867.—­Another party of marauders went off this morning to plunder Nsama’s country to the west of the confluence of the Lofu as a punishment for a breach of public law.  The men employed are not very willing to go, but when they taste the pleasure of plunder they will relish it more!

The watershed begins to have a northern slope about Moamba’s, lat. 10 deg. 10’ S., but the streams are very tortuous, and the people have very confused ideas as to where they run.  The Lokhopa, for instance, was asserted by all the men at Moamba’s to flow into Lokholu, and then into a river going to Liemba, but a young wife of Moamba, who seemed very intelligent, maintained that Lokhopa and Lokholu went to the Chambeze; I therefore put it down thus.  The streams which feed the Chambeze and the Liemba overlap each other, and it would require a more extensive survey than I can give to disentangle them.

North of Moamba, on the Merenge, the slope begins to Liemba.  The Lofu rises in Chibue’s country, and with its tributaries we have long ridges of denudation, each some 500 or 600 feet high, and covered with green trees.  The valleys of denudation enclosed by these hill ranges guide the streams towards Liemba or the four rivers which flow into it.  The country gradually becomes lower, warmer, and tsetse and mosquitoes appear; so at last we come to the remarkable cup-shaped cavity in which Liemba reposes.  Several streams fall down the nearly perpendicular cliffs, and form beautiful cascades.  The lines of denudation are continued, one range rising behind another as far as the eye can reach to the north and east of Liemba, and probably the slope continues away down to Tanganyika.  The watershed extends westwards to beyond Casembe, and the Luapula, or Chambeze, rises in the same parallels of latitude as does the Lofu and the Lonzna.

The Arabs inform me that between this and the sea, about 200 miles distant, lies the country of the Wasango—­called:  Usango—­a fair people, like Portuguese, and very friendly to strangers.  The Wasango possess plenty of cattle:  their chief is called Merere.[53] They count this twenty-five days, while the distance thence to the sea at Bagamoio is one month and twenty-five days—­say 440 miles.  Uchere is very far off northwards, but a man told me that he went to a salt-manufactory in that direction in eight days from Kasonso’s.  Merere goes frequently on marauding expeditions for cattle, and is instigated thereto by his mother.