act in it,
Morumbwa, has only about twenty feet of fall, in a distance of thirty
yards, and it must entirely disappear when the water stands eighty feet
higher. Those of the Makololo who worked on board the ship were not
sorry at the steamer being left below, as they had become heartily tired
of cutting the wood that the insatiable furnace of the "Asthmatic"
required. Mbia, who was a bit of a wag, laughingly exclaimed in broken
English, "Oh, Kebrabasa good, very good; no let shippee up to Sekeletu,
too muchee work, cuttee woodyee, cuttee woodyee: Kebrabasa good." It is
currently reported, and commonly believed, that once upon a time a
Portuguese named Jose Pedra,--by the natives called Nyamatimbira,--chief,
or capitao mor, of Zumbo, a man of large enterprise and small
humanity,--being anxious to ascertain if Kebrabasa could be navigated,
made two slaves fast to a canoe, and launched it from Chicova into
Kebrabasa, in order to see if it would come out at the other end. As
neither slaves nor canoe ever appeared again, his Excellency concluded
that Kebrabasa was unnavigable. A trader had a large canoe swept away by
a sudden rise of the river, and it was found without damage below; but
the most satisfactory information was that of old Sandia, who asserted
that in flood all Kebrabasa became quite smooth, and he had often seen it
so.

We emerged from the thirty-five or forty miles of Kebrabasa hills into
the Chicova plains on the 7th of June, 1860, having made short marches
all the way. The cold nights caused some of our men to cough badly, and
colds in this country almost invariably become fever. The Zambesi
suddenly expands at Chicova, and assumes the size and appearance it has
at Tette. Near this point we found a large seam of coal exposed in the
left bank.

We met with native travellers occasionally. Those on a long journey
carry with them a sleeping-mat and wooden pillow, cooking-pot and bag of
meal, pipe and tobacco-pouch, a knife, bow, and arrows, and two small
sticks, of from two to three feet in length, for making fire, when
obliged to sleep away from human habitations. Dry wood is always
abundant, and they get fire by the following method. A notch is cut in
one of the sticks, which, with a close-grained outside, has a small core
of pith, and this notched stick is laid horizontally on a knife-blade on
the ground; the operator squatting, places his great toes on each end to
keep all steady, and taking the