6th July, 1868.—­Divided our salt that each may buy provisions for himself:  it is here of more value than beads.  Chikumbi sent fine flour, a load for two stout men carried in a large basket slung to a pole, and a fine fat sheep, carried too because it was too fat to walk the distance from his stockade.

7th, 8th, and 9th July, 1868.—­After delaying several days to send our guide, Chikumbi said that he feared the country people would say that the Ingleza brought the Mazitu to them, and so blame will be given to him.  I set this down as “words of pombe,” beery babble; but after returning from Bangweolo, I saw that he must have been preparing to attack a stockade of Banyamwezi in our path, and had he given us a guide, that man would have been in danger in coming back:  he therefore preferred the safety of his man to keeping his promise to me.  I got a Banyamwezi guide, and left on the 10th July, 1868, going over gently rising sandstone hills, covered with forest and seeing many deserted villages, the effects of the Mazitu foray:  we saw also the Mazitu sleeping-places and paths.  They neglect the common paths of the country as going from one village to another, and take straight courses in the direction they wish to go, treading down the grass so as to make a well-marked route, The Banyamwezi expelled them, cutting off so many of them with their guns and arrows that the marauders retired.  The effect of this success on the minds of the Imboshwa, or Imbozhwas, as Chikumbi’s people are called, was not gratitude, but envy at the new power sprung up among them of those who came originally as traders in copper.

Kombokombo’s stockade, the village to which we went this day, was the first object of assault, and when we returned, he told us that Chikumbi had assaulted him on three sides, but was repulsed.  The Banyamwezi were, moreover, much too sharp as traders for the Imboshwa, cheating them unmercifully, and lying like Greeks.  Kombokombo’s stockade was on the Chiberase River, which flows briskly, eight yards broad and deep, through a mile of sponge.  We came in the midst of a general jollification, and were most bountifully supplied with pombe and food.  The Banyamwezi acknowledge allegiance to the Sultan of Zanzibar, and all connected with him are respected.  Kombokombo pressed food and drink on me, and when I told him that I had nothing to return for it, he said that he expected nothing:  he was a child of the Sultan, and ought to furnish all I needed.

11th July, 1868.—­On leaving the Chiberase we passed up over a long line of hills with many villages and gardens, but mostly deserted during the Mazitu raid.  The people fled into the forests on the hills, and were an easy prey to the marauders, who seem to have been unmerciful.  When we descended into the valley beyond we came to a strong stockade, which had successfully resisted the onset of the Mazitu; we then entered on flat forest, with here and there sponges containing plenty of water; plains succeeded the hills, and continued all the way to Bangweolo.  We made a fence in the forest; and next day (12th July) reached the Rofuba, 50 yards broad and 4-1/2 feet deep, full of aquatic plants, and flowing south-west into the Luongo:  it had about a mile and a half of sponge on each side of it.  We encamped a little south of the river.