Only one ulcer is open, the size of a split pea:  malachite was the remedy most useful, but the beginning of the rains may have helped the cure, as it does to others; copper rubbed down is used when malachite cannot be had.  We expect Syde bin Habib soon:  he will take to the river, and I hope so shall I. The native traders reached people who had horns of oxen, got from the left bank of the Lualaba.  Katomba’s people got most ivory, namely, fifty tusks; the others only four.  The Metamba or forest is of immense extent, and there is room for much ivory to be picked up at five or seven bracelets of copper per tusk, if the slaves sent will only be merciful.  The nine villages destroyed, and 100 men killed, by Katomba’s slaves at Nasangwa’s, were all about a string of beads fastened to a powder horn, which a Manyuema man tried in vain to steal!

Katomba gets twenty-five of the fifty tusks brought by his people.  We expect letters, and perhaps men by Syde bin Habib.  No news from the coast had come to Ujiji, save a rumour that some one was building a large house at Bagamoio, but whether French or English no one can say:  possibly the erection of a huge establishment on the mainland may be a way of laboriously proving that it is more healthy than the island.  It will take a long time to prove by stone and lime that the higher lands, 200 miles inland, are better still, both for longevity and work.[9] I am in agony for news from home; all I feel sure of now is that my friends will all wish me to complete my task.  I join in the wish now, as better than doing it in vain afterwards.

The Manyuema hoeing is little better than scraping the soil, and cutting through the roots of grass and weeds, by a horizontal motion of the hoe or knife; they leave the roots of maize, ground-nuts, sweet potatoes, and dura, to find their way into the rich soft soil, and well they succeed, so there is no need for deep ploughing:  the ground-nuts and cassava hold their own against grass for years, and bananas, if cleared of weeds, yield abundantly.  Mohamad sowed rice just outside the camp without any advantage being secured by the vicinity of a rivulet, and it yielded forone measure of seed one hundred and twenty measures of increase.  This season he plants along the rivulet called “Bonde,” and on the damp soil.

The rain-water does not percolate far, for the clay retains it about two feet beneath the surface:  this is a cause of unhealthiness to man.  Fowls and goats have been cut off this year in large numbers by an epidemic.

The visits of the Ujijian traders must be felt by the Manyuema to be a severe infliction, for the huts are appropriated, and no leave asked:  firewood, pots, baskets, and food are used without scruple, and anything that pleases is taken away; usually the women flee into the forest, and return to find the whole place a litter of broken food.  I tried to pay the owners of the huts in which I slept, but often