A very small return present was made by Kavimba, and nothing could be bought except at exorbitant prices.  We remained all day on the 24th haggling and trying to get some grain.  He took a fancy to a shirt, and left it to his wife to bargain for.  She got the length of cursing and swearing, and we bore it, but could get only a small price for it.  We resolved to hold our Christmas some other day, and in a better place.  The women seem ill-regulated here—­Kavimba’s brother had words with his spouse, and at the end of every burst of vociferation on both sides called out, “Bring the Muavi! bring the Muavi!” or ordeal.

Christmas-day, 1866.—­No one being willing to guide us to Moerwa’s, I hinted to Kavimba that should we see a rhinoceros I would kill it.  He came himself, and led us on where he expected to find these animals, but we saw only their footsteps.  We lost our four goats somewhere—­stolen or strayed in the pathless forest, we do not know which, but the loss I felt very keenly, for whatever kind of food we had, a little milk made all right, and I felt strong and well, but coarse food hard of digestion without it was very trying.  We spent the 26th in searching for them, but all in vain.  Kavimba had a boy carrying two huge elephant spears, with these he attacks that large animal single-handed.  We parted from him, as I thought, good friends, but a man who volunteered to act as guide saw him in the forest afterwards, and was counselled by him to leave us as we should not pay him.  This hovering near us after we parted makes me suspect Kavimba of taking the goats, but I am not certain.  The loss affected me more than I could have imagined.  A little indigestible porridge, of scarcely any taste, is now my fare, and it makes me dream of better.

27th December, 1866.—­Our guide asked for his cloth to wear on the way, as it was wet and raining, and his bark cloth was a miserable covering.  I consented, and he bolted on the first opportunity; the forest being so dense he was soon out of reach of pursuit:  he had been advised to this by Kavimba, and nothing else need have been expected.  We then followed the track of a travelling party of Babisa, but the grass springs up over the paths, and it was soon lost:  the rain had fallen early in these parts, and the grass was all in seed.  In the afternoon we came to the hills in the north where Nyamazi rises, and went up the bed of a rivulet for some time, and then ascended out of the valley.  At the bottom of the ascent and in the rivulet the shingle stratum was sometimes fifty feet thick, then as we ascended we met mica schist tilted on edge, then grey gneiss, and last an igneous trap among quartz rocks, with a great deal of bright mica and talc in them.  On resting near the top of the first ascent two honey hunters came to us.  They were using the honey-guide as an aid, the bird came to us as they arrived, waited quietly during the half-hour they smoked and chatted, and then went on with them.[41]