30th March, 1873, Sunday.—­A lion roars mightily.  The fish-hawk utters his weird voice in the morning, as if he lifted up to a friend at a great distance, in a sort of falsetto key.

5 P.M.  Men returned, but the large canoe having been broken by the donkey, we have to go back and pay for it, and take away about twenty men now left.  Matipa kept all the payment from his own people, and so left us in the lurch; thus another five days is lost.

31st March, 1873.—­I sent the men back to Matipa’s for all our party.  I give two dotis to repair the canoe.  Islanders are always troublesome, from a sense of security in their fastnesses.  Made stirrups of thick brass wire four-fold; they promise to do well.  Sent Kabinga a cloth, and a message, but he is evidently a niggard, like Matipa:  we must take him as we find him, there is no use in growling.  Seven of our men returned, having got a canoe from one of Matipa’s men.  Kabinga, it seems, was pleased with the cloth, and says that he will ask for maize from his people, and buy it for me; he has rice growing.  He will send a canoe to carry me over the next river.

3rd April, 1873.—­Very heavy rain last night.  Six inches fell in a short time.  The men at last have come from Matipa’s.

4th April, 1873.—­Sent over to Kabinga to buy a cow, and got a fat one for 2-1/2 dotis, to give the party a feast ere we start.  The kambari fish of the Chambeze is three feet three inches in length.

Two others, the “polwe” and “lopatakwao,” all go up the Chambeze to spawn when the rains begin.  Casembe’s people make caviare of the spawn of the “pumbo.”

[The next entry is made in a new pocket-book, numbered XVII.  For the first few days pen and ink were used, afterwards a well-worn stump of pencil, stuck into a steel penholder and attached to a piece of bamboo, served his purpose.]

5th April, 1873.—­March from Kabinga’s on the Chambeze, our luggage in canoes, and men on land.  We punted on flood six feet deep, with many ant-hills all about, covered with trees.  Course S.S.E. for five miles, across the River Lobingela, sluggish, and about 300 yards wide.

6th April, 1873.—­Leave in the same way, but men were sent from Kabinga to steal the canoes, which we paid his brother Mateysa handsomely for.  A stupid drummer, beating the alarm in the distance, called us inland; we found the main body of our people had gone on, and so by this, our party got separated,[31] and we pulled and punted six or seven hours S.W. in great difficulty, as the fishermen we saw refused to show us where the deep water lay.  The whole country S. of the Lake was covered with water, thickly dotted over with lotus-leaves and rushes.  It has a greenish appearance, and it might be well on a map to show the spaces annually flooded by a broad wavy band, twenty, thirty, and even, forty miles out from the permanent banks of the Lake:  it might be coloured light