2nd November, 1866.—­Kangene is very disagreeable naturally, and as we have to employ five men as carriers, we are in his power.

We can scarcely enter into the feelings of those who are harried by marauders.  Like Scotland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries harassed by Highland Celts on one side and by English Marchmen on the other, and thus kept in the rearward of civilisation, these people have rest neither for many days nor for few.  When they fill their garners they can seldom reckon on eating the grain, for the Mazitu come when the harvest is over and catch as many able-bodied young persons as they can to carry away the corn.  Thus it was in Scotland so far as security for life and property was concerned; but the Scotch were apt pupils of more fortunate nations.  To change of country they were as indifferent as the Romans of the olden times; they were always welcome in France, either as pilgrims, scholars, merchants, or soldiers; but the African is different.  If let alone the African’s mode of life is rather enjoyable; he loves agriculture, and land is to be had anywhere.  He knows nothing of other countries, but he has imbibed the idea of property in man.  This Kangene told me that he would like to give me a slave to look after my goats:  I believe he would rather give a slave than a goat!

We were detained by the illness of Simon for four days.  When he recovered we proposed to the headman to start with five of his men, and he agreed to let us have them; but having called them together such an enormous demand was made for wages, and in advance, that on the 7th of November we took seven loads forward through a level uninhabited country generally covered with small trees, slept there, and on the morning of the 8th, after leaving two men at our depot, came back, and took the remaining five loads.

Kangene was disagreeable to the last.  He asked where we had gone, and, having described the turning point as near the hill Chimbimbe, he complimented us on going so far, and then sent an offer of three men; but I preferred not to have those who would have been spies unless he could give five and take on all the loads.  He said that he would find the number, and after detaining us some hours brought two, one of whom, primed with beer, babbled out that he was afraid of being killed by us in front.  I asked whom we had killed behind, and moved off.  The headman is very childish, does women’s work—­cooking and pounding; and in all cases of that kind the people take after their leader.  The chiefs have scarcely any power unless they are men of energy; they have to court the people rather than be courted.  We came much further back on our way from Mapuio’s than we liked; in fact, our course is like that of a vessel baffled with foul winds:  this is mainly owing to being obliged to avoid places stripped of provisions or suffering this spoliation.  The people, too, can give no information about others at a distance from their own abodes.  Even the smiths, who are a most plodding set of workers, are as ignorant as the others:  they supply the surrounding villages with hoes and knives, and, combining agriculture with handicraft, pass through life.  An intelligent smith came as our guide from Chimbimbe Hill on the 7th, and did not know a range of mountains about twenty miles off:  “it was too far off for him to know the name.”