23rd June, 1866.—­The country is covered with forest, much more open than further east.  We are now some 800 feet above the sea.  The people all cultivate maize near the Rovuma, and on islands where moisture helps them, nearly all possess guns, and plenty of powder and fine beads,—­red ones strung on the hair, and fine blue ones in rolls on the neck, fitted tightly like soldiers’ stocks.  The lip-ring is universal; teeth filed to points.

24th June, 1866.—­Immense quantities of wood are cut down, collected in heaps, and burned to manure the land, but this does not prevent the country having an appearance of forest.  Divine service at 8.30 A.M.; great numbers looking on.  They have a clear idea of the Supreme Being, but do not pray to Him..  Cold south winds prevail; temp. 55 deg.  One of the mules is very ill—­it was left with the havildar when we went back to Ngozo, and probably remained uncovered at night, for as soon as we saw it, illness was plainly visible.  Whenever an animal has been in their power the sepoys have abused it.  It is difficult to feel charitably to fellows whose scheme seems to have been to detach the Nassick boys from me first, then, when the animals were all killed, the Johanna men, afterwards they could rule me as they liked, or go back and leave me to perish; but I shall try to feel as charitably as I can in spite of it all, for the mind has a strong tendency to brood over the ills of travel.  I told the havildar when I came up to him at Metaba what I had done, and that I was very much displeased with the sepoys for compassing my failure, if not death; an unkind word had never passed my lips to them:  to this he could bear testimony.  He thought that they would only be a plague and trouble to me, but he “would go on and die with me.”

Stone boiling is unknown in these countries, but ovens are made in anthills.  Holes are dug in the ground for baking the heads of large game, as the zebra, feet of elephants, humps of rhinoceros, and the production of fire by drilling between the palms of the hands is universal.  It is quite common to see the sticks so used attached to the clothing or bundles in travelling; they wet the blunt end of the upright stick with the tongue, and dip it in the sand to make some particles of silica adhere before inserting it in the horizontal piece.  The wood of a certain wild fig-tree is esteemed as yielding fire readily.

In wet weather they prefer to carry fire in the dried balls of elephants’ dung which are met with—­the male’s being about eight inches in diameter and about a foot long:  they also employ the stalk of a certain plant which grows on rocky places for the same purpose.

We bought a senze, or Aulacaudatus Swindernianus, which had been dried over a slow fire.  This custom of drying fish, flesh, and fruits, on stages over slow fires, is practised very generally:  the use of salt for preservation is unknown.  Besides stages for drying, the Makonde use them about six feet high for sleeping on instead of the damp ground:  a fire beneath helps to keep off the mosquitoes, and they are used by day as convenient resting-places and for observation.