I asked Matumora if the Matambwe believed in God, he replied, that he did not know Him, and I was not to ask the people among whom I was going if they prayed to Him, because they would imagine that I wished them to be killed.  I told him that we loved to speak about Him, &c.  He said, when they prayed they offered a little meal and then prayed, but did not know much about Him.

They have all great reverence for the Deity, and the deliberate way in which they say “We don’t know Him” is to prevent speaking irreverently, as that may injure the country.  The name is “Mulungu”:  Makochera afterwards said, that “He was not good, because He killed so many people.”

4th June, 1866.—­Left Ngomano.  I was obliged to tell the Nassick boys that they must either work or return, it was absurd to have them eating up our goods, and not even carrying their own things, and I would submit to it no more:  five of them carry bales, and two the luggage of the rest.  Abraham and Richard are behind.  I gave them bales to carry, and promised them ten rupees per month, to begin on this date.  Abraham has worked hard all along, and his pay may be due from 7th April, the day we started from Kindany.

5th June, 1866.—­We slept at a village called Lamba, on the banks of the Rovuma, near a brawling torrent of 150 yards, or 200 perhaps, with many islands and rocks in it.  The country is covered with open forest, with patches of cultivation everywhere, but all dried up at present and withered, partly from drought and partly from the cold of winter.  We passed a village with good ripe sorghum cut down, and the heads or ears all laid neatly in a row, this is to get it dried in the sun, and not shaken out by the wind, by waving to and fro; besides it is also more easily watched from being plundered by birds.  The sorghum occasionally does not yield seed, and is then the Sorghum saccharatum, for the stalk contains abundance of sugar, and is much relished by the natives.  Now that so much has failed to yield seed, being indeed just in flower, the stalks are chewed as if sugar-cane, and the people are fat thereon; but the hungry time is in store when these stalles are all done.  They make the best provision in their power against famine by planting beans and maize in moist spots.  The common native pumpkin forms a bastard sort in the same way, but that is considered very inferior.

6th June, 1866.—­Great hills of granite are occasionally in sight towards the north, but the trees, though scraggy, close in the view.  We left a village, called Mekosi, and goon came to a slaving party by a sand stream.  They said that they had bought two slaves, but they had run away from them, and asked us to remain with them; more civil than inviting.  We came on to Makochera, the principal headman in this quarter, and found him a merry laughing mortal, without any good looks to recommend his genial smile,—­low forehead, covered with deep