On leaving Silubi’s village, we went to a range of hills, and after passing through found that we had a comparatively level country on the north:  it would be called a well-wooded country if we looked at it only from a distance.  It is formed into long ridges, all green and wooded; but clumps of large trees, where villages have been, or are still situated, show that the sylvan foliage around and over the whole country is that of mere hop-poles.  The whole of this upland region might be called woody, if we bear in mind that where the population is dense, and has been long undisturbed, the trees are cut down to the size of low bush.  Large districts are kept to about the size of hop-poles, growing on pollards three or four feet from the ground, by charcoal burners, who, in all instances, are smiths too.

On reaching Zeore’s village, on the Lokuzhwa, we found it stockaded, and stagnant pools round three sides of it.  The Mazitu had come, pillaged all the surrounding villages, looked at this, and then went away; so the people had food to sell.  They here call themselves Echewa, and have a different marking from the Atumboka.  The men have the hair dressed as if a number of the hairs of elephants’ tails were stuck around the head:  the women wear a small lip-ring, and a straw or piece of stick in the lower lip, which dangles down about level with the lower edge of the chin:  their clothing in front is very scanty.  The men know nothing of distant places, the Manganja being a very stay-at-home people.  The stockades are crowded with huts, and the children have but small room to play in the narrow spaces between.

25th November, 1866.—­Sunday at Zeore’s.  The villagers thought we prayed for rain, which was much needed.  The cracks in the soil have not yet come together by the “welling of soil produced by moisture.  I disabused their minds about rain-making prayers, and found the headman intelligent.

I did not intend to notice the Lokuzhwa, it is such a contemptible little rill, and not at present running; but in going to our next point, Mpande’s village, we go along its valley, and cross it several times, as it makes for the Loangwa in the north.  The valley is of rich dark red loam, and so many lilies of the Amaryllis kind have established themselves as completely to mask the colour of the soil.  They form a covering of pure white where the land has been cleared by the hoe.  As we go along this valley to the Loangwa, we descend in altitude.  It is said to rise at “Nombe rume,” as we formerly heard.

27th November, 1866.—­Zeore’s people would not carry without prepayment, so we left our extra loads as usual and went on, sending men back for them:  these, however, did not come till 27th, and then two of my men got fever.  I groan in spirit, and do not know how to make our gear into nine loads only.  It is the knowledge that we shall be detained, some two or three months during the heavy rains that makes me cleave to it as means of support.