The Manganja are not a sober people:  they brew large quantities of beer, and like it well.  Having no hops, or other means of checking fermentation, they are obliged to drink the whole brew in a few days, or it becomes unfit for use.  Great merry-makings take place on these occasions, and drinking, drumming, and dancing continue day and night, till the beer is gone.  In crossing the hills we sometimes found whole villages enjoying this kind of mirth.  The veteran traveller of the party remarked, that he had not seen so much drunkenness during all the sixteen years he had spent in Africa.  As we entered a village one afternoon, not a man was to be seen; but some women were drinking beer under a tree.  In a few moments the native doctor, one of the innocents, “nobody’s enemy but his own,” staggered out of a hut, with his cupping-horn dangling from his neck, and began to scold us for a breach of etiquette.  “Is this the way to come into a man’s village, without sending him word that you are coming?” Our men soon pacified the fuddled but good-humoured medico, who, entering his beer-cellar, called on two of them to help him to carry out a huge pot of beer, which he generously presented to us.  While the “medical practitioner” was thus hospitably employed, the chief awoke in a fright, and shouted to the women to run away, or they would all be killed.  The ladies laughed at the idea of their being able to run away, and remained beside the beer-pots.  We selected a spot for our camp, our men cooked the dinner as usual, and we were quietly eating it, when scores of armed men, streaming with perspiration, came pouring into the village.  They looked at us, then at each other, and turning to the chief upbraided him for so needlessly sending for them.  “These people are peaceable; they do not hurt you; you are killed with beer:”  so saying, they returned to their homes.

Native beer has a pinkish colour, and the consistency of gruel.  The grain is made to vegetate, dried in the sun, pounded into meal, and gently boiled.  When only a day or two old, the beer is sweet, with a slight degree of acidity, which renders it a most grateful beverage in a hot climate, or when fever begets a sore craving for acid drinks.  A single draught of it satisfies this craving at once.  Only by deep and long-continued potations can intoxication be produced:  the grain being in a minutely divided state, it is a good way of consuming it, and the decoction is very nutritious.  At Tette a measure of beer is exchanged for an equal-sized pot full of grain.  A present of this beer, so refreshing to our dark comrades, was brought to us in nearly every village.  Beer-drinking does not appear to produce any disease, or to shorten life on the hills.  Never before did we see so many old, grey-headed men and women; leaning on their staves they came with the others to see the white men.  The aged chief, Muata Manga, could hardly have been less than ninety years of age;