e sat leaning against that hedge, and listened to the
harangue of the slave-trader's agent, it glanced across our mind that
this was a terrible world; the best in it unable, from conscious
imperfections, to say to the worst "Stand by! for I am holier than thou."
The slave-trader, imbued no doubt with certain kindly feelings, yet
pursuing a calling which makes him a fair specimen of a human fiend,
stands grouped with those by whom the slave-traders are employed, and
with all the workers of sin and misery in more highly-favoured lands, an
awful picture to the All-seing Eye.

We arrived at Katosa's village on the 15th October, and found about
thirty young men and boys in slave-sticks. They had been bought by other
agents of the Arab slavers, still on the east side of the Shire. They
were resting in the village, and their owners soon removed them. The
weight of the goree seemed very annoying when they tried to sleep. This
taming instrument is kept on, until the party has crossed several rivers
and all hope of escape has vanished from the captive's mind.

On explaining to Katosa the injury he was doing in selling his people as
slaves, he assured us that those whom we had seen belonged to the Arabs,
and added that he had far too few people already. He said he had been
living in peace at the lakelet Pamalombe; that the Ajawa, or Machinga,
under Kainka and Karamba, and a body of Babisa, under Maonga, had induced
him to ferry them over the Shire; that they had lived for a considerable
time at his expense, and at last stole his sheep, which induced him to
make his escape to the place where he now dwelt, and in this flight he
had lost many of his people. His account of the usual conduct of the
Ajawa quite agrees with what these people have narrated themselves, and
gives but a low idea of their moral tone. They have repeatedly broken
all the laws of hospitality by living for months on the bounty of the
Manganja, and then, by a sudden uprising, overcoming their hosts, and
killing or chasing them out of their inheritances. The secret of their
success is the possession of firearms. There were several of these Ajawa
here again, and on our arrival they proposed to Katosa that they should
leave; but he replied that they need not be afraid of us. They had red
beads strung so thickly on their hair that at a little distance they
appeared to have on red caps. It is curious that the taste for red hair
should be so general among the