[His keen enjoyment in noticing the habits of animals and birds serves a good purpose whilst waiting wearily and listening to disputed rumours concerning the Zanzibar porters.  The little orphan birds seem to get on somehow or other; perhaps the Englishman’s eye was no bad protection, and his pity towards the fledglings was a good lesson, we will hope, to the children around the Tembe at Kwihara—­]

19th June, 1872.—­Whydahs, though full fledged, still gladly take a feed from their dam, putting down the breast to the ground and cocking up the bill and chirruping in the most engaging manner and winning way they know.  She still gives them a little, but administers a friendly shove off too.  They all pick up feathers or grass, and hop from side to side of their mates, as if saying, “Come, let us play at making little houses.”  The wagtail has shaken her young quite off, and has a new nest.  She warbles prettily, very much like a canary, and is extremely active in catching flies, but eats crumbs of bread-and-milk too.  Sun-birds visit the pomegranate flowers and eat insects therein too, as well as nectar.  The young whydah birds crouch closely together at night for heat.  They look like a woolly ball on a branch.  By day they engage in pairing and coaxing each other.  They come to the same twig every night.  Like children they try and lift heavy weights of feathers above their strength.

[How fully he hoped to reach the hill from which he supposed the Nile to flow is shown in the following words written at this time:—­]

I trust in Providence still to help me.  I know the four rivers Zambesi, Kafue, Luapula, and Lomame, their fountains must exist in one region.

An influential Muganda is dead of dysentery:  no medicine had any effect in stopping the progress of the disease.  This is much colder than his country.  Another is blind from ophthalmia.

Great hopes are held that the war which has lasted a full year will now be brought to a close, and Mirambo either be killed or flee.  As he is undoubtedly an able man, his flight may involve much trouble and guerilla warfare.

Clear cold weather, and sickly for those who have only thin clothing, and not all covered.

The women work very hard in providing for their husbands’ kitchens.  The rice is the most easily prepared grain:  three women stand round a huge wooden mortar with pestles in their hands, a gallon or so of the unhusked rice—­called Mopunga here and paddy in India—­is poured in, and the three heavy pestles worked in exact time; each jerks up her body as she lifts the pestle and strikes it into the mortar with all her might, lightening the labour with some wild ditty the while, though one hears by the strained voice that she is nearly out of breath.  When the husks are pretty well loosened, the grain is put into a large plate-shaped basket and tossed so as to bring the chaff to one side, the vessel is then heaved downwards and a little horizontal motion