I saw the skin of a Phenembe, a species of lizard which devours chickens; here it is named Salka.  It had been flayed by a cut up the back—­body, 12 inches; across belly, 10 inches.

After nearly giving up the search for Dr. Roscher’s point of reaching the Lake—­because no one, either Arab or native, had the least idea of either Nusseewa or Makawa, the name given to the place—­I discovered it in Lessefa, the accentuated e being sounded as our e in set.  This word would puzzle a German philologist, as being the origin of Nussewa, but the Waiyau pronounce it Losewa, the Arabs Lussewa, and Roscher’s servant transformed the L and e into N and ee, hence Nusseewa.  In confirmation of this rivulet Lesefa, which is opposite Kotakota, or, as the Arabs pronounce it, Nkotakota, the chief is Mangkaka (Makawa), or as there is a confusion of names as to chief it may be Mataka, whose town and district is called Moembe, the town Pamoembe = Mamemba.

I rest content with Kingomango so far verifying the place at which he arrived two months after we had discovered Lake Nyassa.  He deserved all the credit due to finding the way thither, but he travelled as an Arab, and no one suspected him to be anything else.  Our visits have been known far and wide, and great curiosity excited; but Dr. Roscher merits the praise only of preserving his incognito at a distance from Kilwa:  his is almost the only case known of successfully assuming the Arab guise—­Burckhardt is the exception.  When Mr. Palgrave came to Muscat, or a town in Oman where our political agent Col.  Desborough was stationed, he was introduced to that functionary by an interpreter as Hajee Ali, &c.  Col.  Desborough replied, “You are no Hajee Ali, nor anything else but Gifford Palgrave, with whom I was schoolfellow at the Charter House.”  Col.  Desborough said he knew him at once, from a peculiar way of holding his head, and Palgrave begged him not to disclose his real character to his interpreter, on whom, and some others, he had been imposing.  I was told this by Mr. Dawes, a Lieutenant in the Indian navy, who accompanied Colonel Pelly in his visit to the Nejed, Riad, &c, and took observations for him.

Tangare is the name of a rather handsome bean, which possesses intoxicating qualities.  To extract these it is boiled, then peeled, and new water supplied:  after a second and third boiling it is pounded, and the meal taken to the river and the water allowed to percolate through it several times.  Twice cooking still leaves the intoxicating quality; but if eaten then it does not cause death:  it is curious that the natives do not use it expressly to produce intoxication.  When planted near a tree it grows all over it, and yields abundantly:  the skin of the pod is velvety, like our broad beans.

Another bean, with a pretty white mark on it, grows freely, and is easily cooked, and good:  it is here called Gwingwiza.