9th September, 1866.—­We spent Sunday at Kandango’s village.  The men killed a hippopotamus when it was sleeping on the shore; a full-grown female, 10 feet 9 inches from the snout to the insertion of the tail, and 4 feet 4 inches high at the withers.  The bottom here and all along southwards now is muddy.  Many of the Siluris Glanis are caught equal in length to an eleven or a twelve-pound salmon, but a great portion is head; slowly roasted on a stick stuck in the ground before the fire they seemed to me much more savoury than I ever tasted them before.  With the mud we have many shells:  north of Ngombo scarcely one can be seen, and there it is sandy or rocky.

10th September, 1866.—­In marching southwards we came close to the range (the Lake lies immediately on the other side of it), but we could not note the bays which it forms; we crossed two mountain torrents from sixty to eighty yards broad, and now only ankle deep.  In flood these bring down enormous trees, which are much battered and bruised among the rocks in their course; they spread over the plain, too, and would render travelling here in the rains impracticable.  After spending the night at a very civil headman’s chefu, we crossed the Lotende, another of these torrents:  each very lofty mass in the range seemed to give rise to one.  Nothing of interest occurred as we trudged along.  A very poor headman, Pamawawa, presented a roll of salt instead of food:  this was grateful to us, as we have been without that luxury some time.

12th September, 1866.—­We crossed the rivulet Nguena, and then went on to another with a large village by it, it is called Pantoza Pangone.  The headman had been suffering from sore eyes for four months, and pressed me to stop and give him medicine, which I did.

13th September, 1866.—­We crossed a strong brook called Nkore.  My object in mentioning the brooks which were flowing at this time, and near the end of the dry season, is to give an idea of the sources of supply of evaporation.  The men enumerate the following, north of the Misinje.  Those which are greater are marked thus +, and the lesser ones -.

     1.  Misinje + has canoes.
     2.  Loangwa —
     3.  Lesefa —
     4.  Lelula —
     5.  Nchamanje —
     6.  Musumba +
     7.  Fubwe +
     8.  Chia —
     9.  Kisanga +
    10.  Bweka —
    11.  Chifumero + has canoes.
    12.  Loangwa —
    13.  Mkoho —
    14.  Mangwelo — at N. end of Lake.

Including the above there are twenty or twenty-four perennial brooks and torrents which give a good supply of water in the dry season; in the wet season they are supplemented by a number of burns, which, though flowing now, have their mouths blocked up with bars of sand, and yield nothing except by percolation; the Lake rises at least four feet perpendicularly in the wet season, and has enough during the year from these perennial brooks to supply the Shire’s continual flow.