When we arrived at Kanyenje, Kanyindula was out collecting charcoal.  He sent a party of men to ask if we should remain next day:  an old, unintellectual-looking man was among the number sent, who had twenty-seven rings of elephant’s skin on his arm, all killed by himself by the spear alone:  he had given up fighting elephants since the Mazitu came, whom we heard had passed away to the south-east of this place, taking all the crops of last year, and the chief alone has food.  He gave us some, which was very acceptable, as we got none at the two villages south of this.  Kanyindula came himself in the evening, an active, stern-looking man, but we got on very well with him.

The people say that they were taught to smelt iron by Chisumpi, which is the name of Mulungu (God), and that they came from Lake Nyassa originally; if so, they are greatly inferior to the Manganja on the Lake in pottery, for the fragments, as well as modern whole vessels, are very coarse; the ornamentation is omitted or merely dots.  They never heard of aerolites, but know hail.

I notice here that the tree Mfu, or Moe, having sweet-scented leaves, yields an edible plum in clusters.  Bua-bwa is another edible fruit-tree with palmated leaves.

Mbeu is a climbing, arboraceous plant, and yields a very pleasant fruit, which tastes like gooseberries:  its seeds are very minute.

18th and 19th November, 1866.—­Rain fell heavily yesterday afternoon, and was very threatening to-day; we remain to sew a calico tent.

20th November, 1866.—­Kanyindula came with three carriers this morning instead of five, and joined them in demanding prepayment:  it was natural for him to side with them, as they have more power than he has, in fact, the chiefs in these parts all court their people, and he could feel more interest in them than in an entire stranger whom he might never see again:  however, we came on without his people, leaving two to guard the loads.

About four miles up the valley we came to a village named Kanyenjere Mponda, at the fountain-eye of the Bua, and thence sent men back for the loads, while we had the shelter of good huts during a heavy thunder-shower, and made us willing to remain all night.  The valley is lovely in the extreme.  The mountains on each side are gently rounded, and, as usual, covered over with tree foliage, except where the red soil is exposed by recent grass-burnings.  Quartz rocks jut out, and much drift of that material has been carried down by the gullies into the bottom.  These gullies being in compact clay, the water has but little power of erosion, so they are worn deep but narrow.  Some fragments of titaniferous iron ore, with haematite changed by heat, and magnetic, lay in the gully, which had worn itself a channel on the north side of the village.  The Bua, like most African streams whose sources I have seen, rises in an oozing boggy spot.  Another stream, the Tembwe, rises near the same spot, and flows N.W. into, the Loangwa.  We saw Shuare palms in its bed.