We arrived at Zumbo, at the mouth of the Loangwa, on the 1st of November.  The water being scarcely up to the knee, our land party waded this river with ease.  A buffalo was shot on an island opposite Pangola’s, the ball lodging in the spleen.  It was found to have been wounded in the same organ previously, for an iron bullet was imbedded in it, and the wound entirely healed.  A great deal of the plant Pistia stratiotes was seen floating in the river.  Many people inhabit the right bank about this part, yet the game is very abundant.

As we were taking our breakfast on the morning of the 2nd, the Mambo Kazai, of whom we knew nothing, and his men came with their muskets and large powder-horns to levy a fine, and obtain payment for the wood we used in cooking.  But on our replying to his demand that we were English, “Oh! are you?” he said; “I thought you were Bazungu (Portuguese).  They are the people I take payments from:”  and he apologized for his mistake.  Bazungu, or Azungu, is a term applied to all foreigners of a light colour, and to Arabs; even to trading slaves if clothed; it probably means foreigners, or visitors,—­from zunga, to visit or wander,—­and the Portuguese were the only foreigners these men had ever seen.  As we had no desire to pass for people of that nation—­quite the contrary—­we usually made a broad line of demarcation by saying that we were English, and the English neither bought, sold, nor held black people as slaves, but wished to put a stop to the slave-trade altogether.

We called upon our friend, Mpende, in passing.  He provided a hut for us, with new mats spread on the floor.  Having told him that we were hurrying on because the rains were near, “Are they near?” eagerly inquired an old counsellor, “and are we to have plenty of rain this year?” We could only say that it was about the usual time for the rains to commence; and that there were the usual indications in great abundance of clouds floating westwards, but that we knew nothing more than they did themselves.

The hippopotami are more wary here than higher up, as the natives hunt them with guns.  Having shot one on a shallow sandbank, our men undertook to bring it over to the left bank, in order to cut it up with greater ease.  It was a fine fat one, and all rejoiced in the hope of eating the fat for butter, with our hard dry cakes of native meal.  Our cook was sent over to cut a choice piece for dinner, but returned with the astonishing intelligence that the carcass was gone.  They had been hoodwinked, and were very much ashamed of themselves.  A number of Banyai came to assist in rolling it ashore, and asserted that it was all shallow water.  They rolled it over and over towards the land, and, finding the rope we had made fast to it, as they said, an encumbrance, it was unloosed.  All were shouting and talking as loud as they could bawl, when suddenly our expected feast plumped into a deep hole, as the