he ears of a male
prisoner, as a sort of credential that he had been with the Mazitu, and
with grim humour sent him to tell Chinsamba "to take good care of the
corn in the stockades, for they meant to return for it in a month or
two."

Chinsamba's people were drumming with might and main on our arrival, to
express their joy at their deliverance from the Mazitu. The drum is the
chief instrument of music among the Manganja, and with it they express
both their joy and grief. They excel in beating time. Chinsamba called
us into a very large hut, and presented us with a huge basket of beer.
The glare of sunlight from which we had come enabled him, in diplomatic
fashion, to have a good view of us before our eyes became enough
accustomed to the dark inside to see him. He has a Jewish cast of
countenance, or rather the ancient Assyrian face, as seen in the
monuments brought to the British Museum by Mr. Layard. This form of face
is very common in this country, and leads to the belief that the true
type of the negro is not that met on the West Coast, from which most
people have derived their ideas of the African.

Chinsamba had many Abisa or Babisa in his stockade, and it was chiefly by
the help of their muskets that he had repulsed the Mazitu: these Babisa
are great travellers and traders.

We liked Chinsamba very well, and found that he was decidedly opposed to
our risking our lives by going further to the N.W. The Mazitu were
believed to occupy all the hills in that direction, so we spent the 4th
of September with him.

It is rather a minute thing to mention, and it will only be understood by
those who have children of their own, but the cries of the little ones,
in their infant sorrows, are the same in tone, at different ages, here as
all over the world. We have been perpetually reminded of home and family
by the wailings which were once familiar to parental ears and heart, and
felt thankful that to the sorrows of childhood our children would never
have superadded the heartrending woes of the slave-trade.

Taking Chinsamba's advice to avoid the Mazitu in their marauding, we
started on the 5th September away to the N.E., and passed mile after mile
of native cornfields, with an occasional cotton-patch.

After a long march, we passed over a waterless plain about N.N.W. of the
hills of Tsenga to a village on the Lake, and thence up its shores to
Chitanda. The banks of the Lake were now crowded with fugitives, who ha