We slept on the night of the 6th of July on the left bank of the Chongwe, which comes through a gap in the hills on our right, and is twenty yards wide.  A small tribe of the Bazizulu, from the south, under Dadanga, have recently settled here and built a village.  Some of their houses are square, and they seem to be on friendly terms with the Bakoa, who own the country.  They, like the other natives, cultivate cotton, but of a different species from any we have yet seen in Africa, the staple being very long, and the boll larger than what is usually met with; the seeds cohere as in the Pernambuco kind.  They brought the seed with them from their own country, the distant mountains of which in the south, still inhabited by their fellow-countrymen, who possess much cattle and use shields, can be seen from this high ground.  These people profess to be children of the great paramount chief, Kwanyakarombe, who is said to be lord of all the Bazizulu.  The name of this tribe is known to geographers, who derive their information from the Portuguese, as the Morusurus, and the hills mentioned above are said to have been the country of Changamira, the warrior-chief of history, whom no Portuguese ever dared to approach.  The Bazizulu seem, by report, to be brave mountaineers; nearer the river, the Sidima inhabit the plains; just as on the north side, the Babimpe live on the heights, about two days off, and the Makoa on or near the river.  The chief of the Bazizulu we were now with was hospitable and friendly.  A herd of buffaloes came trampling through the gardens and roused up our men; a feat that roaring lions seldom achieved.

Our course next day passed over the upper terrace and through a dense thorn jungle.  Travelling is always difficult where there is no path, but it is even more perplexing where the forest is cut up by many game-tracks.  Here we got separated from one another, and a rhinoceros with angry snort dashed at Dr. Livingstone as he stooped to pick up a specimen of the wild fruit morula; but she strangely stopped stock-still when less than her own length distant, and gave him time to escape; a branch pulled out his watch as he ran, and turning half round to grasp it, he got a distant glance of her and her calf still standing on the selfsame spot, as if arrested in the middle of her charge by an unseen hand.  When about fifty yards off, thinking his companions close behind, he shouted “Look out there!” when off she rushed, snorting loudly, in another direction.  The Doctor usually went unarmed before this, but never afterwards.

A fine eland was shot by Dr. Kirk this afternoon, the first we have killed.  It was in first-rate condition, and remarkably fat; but the meat, though so tempting in appearance, severely deranged all who partook of it heartily, especially those who ate of the fat.  Natives who live in game countries, and are acquainted with the different kinds of wild animals, have a prejudice against the fat of the eland, the pallah, the zebra, hippopotamus, and pig; they never reject it, however, the climate making the desire for all animal food very strong; but they consider that it causes ulcers and leprosy, while the fat of sheep and of oxen never produces any bad effects, unless the animal is diseased.