We spent the first night, after leaving the slave route, at the village of Nkoma, among a section of Manganja, called Machewa, or Macheba, whose district extends to the Bua.

The next village at which we slept was also that of a Manganja smith.  It was a beautiful spot, shaded with tall euphorbia-trees.  The people at first fled, but after a short time returned, and ordered us off to a stockade of Babisa, about a mile distant.  We preferred to remain in the smooth shady spot outside the hamlet, to being pent up in a treeless stockade.  Twenty or thirty men came dropping in, all fully armed with bows and arrows, some of them were at least six feet four in height, yet these giants were not ashamed to say, “We thought that you were Mazitu, and, being afraid, ran away.”  Their orders to us were evidently inspired by terror, and so must the refusal of the headman to receive a cloth, or lend us a hut have been; but as we never had the opportunity of realizing what feelings a successful invasion would produce, we did not know whether to blame them or not.  The headman, a tall old smith, with an enormous, well-made knife of his own workmanship, came quietly round, and, inspecting the shelter, which, from there being abundance of long grass and bushes near, our men put up for us in half an hour, gradually changed his tactics, and, in the evening, presented us with a huge pot of porridge and a deliciously well-cooked fowl, and made an apology for having been so rude to strangers, and a lamentation that he had been so foolish as to refuse the fine cloth we had offered.  Another cloth was of course presented, and we had the pleasure of parting good friends next day.

Our guide, who belonged to the stockade near to which we had slept, declined to risk himself further than his home.  While waiting to hire another, Masiko attempted to purchase a goat, and had nearly concluded the bargain, when the wife of the would-be seller came forward, and said to her husband, “You appear as if you were unmarried; selling a goat without consulting your wife; what an insult to a woman!  What sort of man are you?” Masiko urged the man, saying, “Let us conclude the bargain, and never mind her;” but he being better instructed, replied, “No, I have raised a host against myself already,” and refused.

We now pushed on to the east, so as to get down to the shores of the Lake, and into the parts where we were known.  The country was beautiful, well wooded, and undulating, but the villages were all deserted; and the flight of the people seemed to have been quite recent, for the grain was standing in the corn-safes untouched.  The tobacco, though ripe, remained uncut in the gardens, and the whole country was painfully quiet:  the oppressive stillness quite unbroken by the singing of birds, or the shrill calls of women watching their corn.