small trees, slept there,
and on the morning of the 8th, after leaving two men at our depot,
came back, and took the remaining five loads.

Kangene was disagreeable to the last. He asked where we had gone,
and, having described the turning point as near the hill Chimbimbe, he
complimented us on going so far, and then sent an offer of three men;
but I preferred not to have those who would have been spies unless he
could give five and take on all the loads. He said that he would find
the number, and after detaining us some hours brought two, one of
whom, primed with beer, babbled out that he was afraid of being killed
by us in front. I asked whom we had killed behind, and moved off. The
headman is very childish, does women's work--cooking and pounding; and
in all cases of that kind the people take after their leader. The
chiefs have scarcely any power unless they are men of energy; they
have to court the people rather than be courted. We came much further
back on our way from Mapuio's than we liked; in fact, our course is
like that of a vessel baffled with foul winds: this is mainly owing to
being obliged to avoid places stripped of provisions or suffering this
spoliation. The people, too, can give no information about others at a
distance from their own abodes. Even the smiths, who are a most
plodding set of workers, are as ignorant as the others: they supply
the surrounding villages with hoes and knives, and, combining
agriculture with handicraft, pass through life. An intelligent smith
came as our guide from Chimbimbe Hill on the 7th, and did not know a
range of mountains about twenty miles off: "it was too far off for him
to know the name."

_9th November, 1866._--The country over which we actually travel is
level and elevated, but there are mountains all about, which when put
on the map make it appear to be a mountainous region. We are on the
watershed, apparently between the Loangwa of Zumbo on the west, and
the Lake on the east. The Leue or Leuia is said by the people to flow
into the Loangwa. The Chigumokire coming from the north in front,
eastward of Irongwe (the same mountains on which Kangene skulks out of
sight of Mazitu), flows into the Leue, and north of that we have the
Mando, a little stream, flowing into the Bua. The rivulets on the west
flow in deep defiles, and the elevation on which we travel makes it
certain that no water can come from the lower lands on the west. It
seems that the Portuguese in tra