to send a ball through him
if he did not go away. They snatched up their guns to shoot him, but he
prudently kept in the dark, outside the luminous circle made by our camp
fires, and there they did not like to venture. A little strychnine was
put into a piece of meat, and thrown to him, when he soon departed, and
we heard no more of the majestic sneaker.

The Kebrabasa people were now plumper and in better condition than on our
former visits; the harvest had been abundant; they had plenty to eat and
drink, and they were enjoying life as much as ever they could. At
Defwe's village, near where the ship lay on her first ascent, we found
two Mfumos or headmen, the son and son-in-law of the former chief. A
sister's son has much more chance of succeeding to a chieftainship than
the chief's own offspring, it being unquestionable that the sister's
child has the family blood. The men are all marked across the nose and
up the middle of the forehead with short horizontal bars or cicatrices;
and a single brass earring of two or three inches diameter, like the
ancient Egyptian, is worn by the men. Some wear the hair long like the
ancient Assyrians and Egyptians, and a few have eyes with the downward
and inward slant of the Chinese.

After fording the rapid Luia, we left our former path on the banks of the
Zambesi, and struck off in a N.W. direction behind one of the hill
ranges, the eastern end of which is called Mongwa, the name of an acacia,
having a peculiarly strong fetor, found on it. Our route wound up a
valley along a small mountain-stream which was nearly dry, and then
crossed the rocky spurs of some of the lofty hills. The country was all
very dry at the time, and no water was found except in an occasional
spring and a few wells dug in the beds of watercourses. The people were
poor, and always anxious to convince travellers of the fact. The men,
unlike those on the plains, spend a good deal of their time in hunting;
this may be because they have but little ground on the hill-sides
suitable for gardens, and but little certainty of reaping what may be
sown in the valleys. No women came forward in the hamlet, east of
Chiperiziwa, where we halted for the night. Two shots had been fired at
guinea-fowl a little way off in the valley; the women fled into the
woods, and the men came to know if war was meant, and a few of the old
folks only returned after hearing that we were for peace. The headman,
Kambira, apologize