The Mukuru-Madse has a deep rocky bed.  The water is generally about four feet deep, and fifteen or twenty yards broad.  Before reaching it, we passed five or six gullies; but beyond it the country, for two or three miles from the river, was comparatively smooth.  The long grass was overrunning all the native paths, and one species (sanu), which has a sharp barbed seed a quarter of an inch in length, enters every pore of woollen clothing and highly irritates the skin.  From its hard, sharp point a series of minute barbs are laid back, and give the seed a hold wherever it enters:  the slightest touch gives it an entering motion, and the little hooks prevent its working out.  These seeds are so abundant in some spots, that the inside of the stocking becomes worse than the roughest hair shirt.  It is, however, an excellent self-sower, and fine fodder; it rises to the height of common meadow-grass in England, and would be a capital plant for spreading over a new country not so abundantly supplied with grasses as this is.

We have sometimes noticed two or three leaves together pierced through by these seeds, and thus made, as it were, into wings to carry them to any soil suited to their growth.

We always follow the native paths, though they are generally not more than fifteen inches broad, and so often have deep little holes in them, made for the purpose of setting traps for small animals, and are so much obscured by the long grass, that one has to keep one’s eyes on the ground more than is pleasant.  In spite, however, of all drawbacks, it is vastly more easy to travel on these tracks than to go straight over uncultivated ground, or virgin forest.  A path usually leads to some village, though sometimes it turns out to be a mere game track leading nowhere.

In going north, we came into a part called Mpemba where Chibisa was owned as chief, but the people did not know that he had been assassinated by the Portuguese Terera.  A great deal of grain was lying round the hut, where we spent the night.  Very large numbers of turtledoves feasted undisturbed on the tall stalked mapira ears, and we easily secured plenty of fine fat guinea-fowls—­now allowed to feed leisurely in the deserted gardens.  The reason assigned for all this listless improvidence was “There are no women to grind the corn—­all are dead.”

The cotton patches in all cases seemed to have been so well cared for, and kept so free of weeds formerly, that, though now untended, but few weeds had sprung up; and the bushes were thus preserved in the annual grass burnings.  Many baobab-trees grow in different spots, and the few people seen were using the white pulp found between the seeds to make a pleasant subacid drink.