and people are made dependent on the Rovuma alone.  The first evidence of our being near the pleasant haunts of man was a nice little woman drawing water at a well.  I had become separated from the rest:  on giving me water she knelt down, and, as country manners require, held it up to me with both hands.  I had been misled by one of the carriers, who got confused, though the rounded mass of Ngozo was plainly visible from the heights we crossed east of it.

An Arab party bolted on hearing of our approach:  they don’t trust the English, and this conduct increases our importance among the natives.  Lat. 11 deg. 18’ 10” S.

11th June, 1866.—­Our carriers refuse to go further, because they say that they fear being captured here on their return.

12th June, 1866.—­I paid off the carriers, and wait for a set from this.  A respectable man, called Makoloya, or Impande, visited me, and wished to ask some questions as to where I was going, and how long I should be away.  He had heard from a man who came from Ibo, or Wibo, about the Bible, a large book which was consulted.

[Illustration:  Tattoo of Matambwe.]

13th June, 1866.—­Makoloya brought his wife and a little corn, and says that his father told him that there is a God, but nothing more.  The marks on their foreheads and bodies are meant only to give beauty in the dance, they seem a sort of heraldic ornament, for they can at once tell by his tattoo to what tribe or portion of tribe a man belongs.  The tattoo or tembo of the Matambwe and Upper Makonde very much resembles the drawings of the old Egyptians; wavy lines, such as the ancients made to signify water, trees and gardens enclosed in squares, seem to have been meant of old for the inhabitants who lived on the Rovuma, and cultivated also, the son takes the tattoo of his father, and thus it has been perpetuated, though the meaning now appears lost.  The Makoa have the half or nearly full moon, but it is, they say, all for ornament.  Some blue stuff is rubbed into the cuts (I am told it is charcoal), and the ornament shows brightly in persons of light complexion, who by the bye are common.  The Makonde and Matambwe file their front teeth to points; the Machinga, a Waiyan tribe, leave two points on the sides of the front teeth, and knock out one of the middle incisors above and below.

[Illustration:  Machinga and Waiyan Teeth.]

14th June, 1866.—­I am now as much dependent on carriers as if I had never bought a beast of burden—­but this is poor stuff to fill a journal with.  We started off to Metaba to see if the chief there would lend some men.  The headman, Kitwanga, went a long way to convoy us; then turned, saying he was going to get men for Musa next day.  We passed near the base of the rounded masses Ngozo and Mekanga, and think, from a near inspection, that they are over 2000 feet above the plain, possibly 3000 feet, and nearly bare, with only the peculiar