15th September, 1866.—­We were now a short distance south of the Lake, and might have gone west to Mosauka’s (called by some Pasauka’s) to cross the Shire there, but I thought that my visit to Mukate’s, a Waiyau chief still further south, might do good.  He, Mponda, and Kabinga, are the only three chiefs who still carry on raids against the Manganja at the instigation of the coast Arabs, and they are now sending periodical marauding parties to the Maravi (here named Malola) to supply the Kilwa slave-traders.  We marched three hours southwards, then up the hills of the range which flanks all the lower part of the Lake.  The altitude of the town is about 800 feet above the Lake.  The population near the chief is large, and all the heights as far as the eye can reach are crowned with villages.  The second range lies a few miles off, and is covered with trees as well as the first, the nearest high mass is Mangoche.  The people live amidst plenty.  All the chiefs visited by the Arabs have good substantial square houses built for their accommodation.  Mukate never saw a European before, and everything about us is an immense curiosity to him and to his people.  We had long visits from him.  He tries to extract a laugh out of every remark.  He is darker than the generality of Waiyau, with a full beard trained on the chin, as all the people hereabouts have—­Arab fashion.  The courts of his women cover a large space, our house being on one side of them.  I tried to go out that way, but wandered, so the ladies sent a servant to conduct me out in the direction I wished to go, and we found egress by passing through some huts with two doors in them.

16th September, 1866.—­At Mukate’s.  The Prayer Book does not give ignorant persons any idea of an unseen Being addressed, it looks more like reading or speaking to the book:  kneeling and praying with eyes shut is better than, our usual way of holding Divine service.

We had a long discussion about the slave-trade.  The Arabs have told the chief that our object in capturing slavers is to get them into our own possession, and make them of our own religion.  The evils which we have seen—­the skulls, the ruined villages, the numbers who perish on the way to the coast and on the sea, the wholesale murders committed by the Waiyau to build up Arab villages elsewhere—­these things Mukate often tried to turn off with a laugh, but our remarks are safely lodged in many hearts.  Next day, as we went along, our guide spontaneously delivered their substance to the different villages along our route.  Before we reached him, a headman, in convoying me a mile or two, whispered to me, “Speak to Mukate to give his forays up.”

It is but little we can do, but we lodge a protest in the heart against a vile system, and time may ripen it.  Their great argument is, “What could we do without Arab cloth?” My answer is, “Do what you did before the Arabs came into the country.”  At the present rate of destruction of population, the whole country will soon be a desert.