9th July, 1866.—­The Masuko fruit abounds:  the name is the same here as in the Batoka country; there are also rhododendrons of two species, but the flowers white.  We slept in a wild spot, near Mount Leziro, with many lions roaring about us; one hoarse fellow serenaded us a long time, but did nothing more.  Game is said to be abundant, but we saw none, save an occasional diver springing away from the path.  Some streams ran to the north-west to the Lismyando, which flows N. for the Rovuma; others to the south-east for the Loendi.

10th and 11th July, 1866.—­Nothing to interest but the same weary trudge:  our food so scarce that we can only give a handful or half a pound of grain to each person per day.  The Masuko fruit is formed, but not ripe till rains begin; very few birds are seen or heard, though there is both food and water in the many grain-bearing grasses and running streams, which we cross at the junction of every two ridges.  A dead body lay in a hut by the wayside; the poor thing had begun to make a garden by the stream, probably in hopes of living long enough (two months or so) on wild fruits to reap a crop of maize.

12th July, 1866.—­A drizzling mist set in during the night and continued this morning, we set off in the dark, however, leaving our last food for the havildar and sepoys who had not yet come up.  The streams are now of good size.  An Arab brandy bottle was lying broken in one village called Msapa.  We hurried on as fast as we could to the Luatize, our last stage before getting to Mataka’s; this stream is rapid, about forty yards wide, waist deep, with many podostemons on the bottom.  The country gets more and more undulating and is covered with masses of green foliage, chiefly Masuko trees, which have large hard leaves.  There are hippopotami further down the river on its way to the Loendi.  A little rice which had been kept for me I divided, but some did not taste food.

13th July, 1866.—­A good many stragglers behind, but we push on to get food and send it back to them.  The soil all reddish clay, the roads baked hard by the sun, and the feet of many of us are weary and sore:  a weary march and long, for it is perpetually up and down now.  I counted fifteen running streams in one day:  they are at the bottom of the valley which separates the ridges.  We got to the brow of a ridge about an hour from Mataka’s first gardens, and all were so tired that we remained to sleep; but we first invited volunteers to go on and buy food, and bring it back early next morning:  they had to be pressed to do this duty.

14th July, 1866.—­As our volunteers did not come at 8 A.M., I set off to see the cause, and after an hour of perpetual up and down march, as I descended the steep slope which overlooks the first gardens, I saw my friends start up at the apparition—­they were comfortably cooking porridge for themselves!  I sent men of Mataka back with food to the stragglers behind and came on to his town.