25th July, 1868.—­Strong S.E. wind still blowing, but having paid the canoe-men amply for four days with beads, and given Masantu a hoe and beads too, we embarked at 11.40 A.M. in a fine canoe, 45 feet long, 4 feet deep, and 4 feet broad.  The waves were high, but the canoe was very dry and five stout men propelled her quickly towards an opening in Lifunge Island, on our S.E.  Here we stopped to wood, and I went away to look at the island, which had the marks of hippopotami and a species of jackal on it:  it had hard wiry grass, some flowers, and a species of Gapparidaceous tree.  The trees showed well the direction of the prevailing wind to be south-east, for the branches on that side were stunted or killed, while those on the north-west ran out straight, and made the trees appear, as sailors say, lopsided:  the trunks too were bent that way.

The canoe-men now said that they would start, then that they would sleep here, because we could not reach the Island Mpabala before dark, and would not get a hut.  I said that it would be sleeping out of doors only in either case, so they went.  We could see the island called Kisi on our east, apparently a double island, about 15 miles off, and the tops of the trees barely visible on Mpabala on our south-east.  It was all sea horizon on our south and north, between Lifunge and Mpabala, and between Lifunge and Kisi.  We could not go to Kisi, because, as the canoe-men told us, they had stolen their canoe thence.  Though we decided to go, we remained awhile to let the sea go down.  A hammerhead’s nest on one of the trees was fully four feet high.  Coarse rushes show the shoals near the islands.  Only one shell was seen on the shores.  The canoe ships much less water in this surf than our boat did in that of Nyassa.  The water is of a deep sea-green colour, probably from the reflection of the fine white sand of the bottom; we saw no part having the deep dark blue of Nyassa, and conjecture that the depth is not great; but I had to leave our line when Amoda absconded.  On Kisi we observed a dark square mass, which at first I took to be a low hill:  it turned out to be a mass of trees (probably the place of sepulture, for the graveyards are always untouched), and shows what a dense forest this land would become were it not for the influence of men.

We reached Mpabala after dark.  It was bitterly cold, from the amount of moisture in the air.  I asked a man who came to see what the arrival was, for a hut; he said, “Do strangers require huts, or ask for them at night?” he then led us to the public place of meeting, called Nsaka, which is a large shed, with planks around and open spaces between, instead of walls; here we cooked a little porridge, and ate it, then I lay down on one side, with the canoe-men and my attendants at the fire in the middle, and was soon asleep, and dreamed that I had apartments in Mivart’s Hotel.  This made me feel much amused next day, for I never dream unless I am ill, or going to be ill; and of all places in the world, I never thought of Mivart’s Hotel in my waking moments; a freak of the fancy surely, for I was not at all discontented with my fare, or apartment, I was only afraid of getting a stock of vermin from my associates.