eight in spite of their protests. They said that
the gates were shut by the boys; but when I pointed out the boy who
had done it, he said that he had been ordered to do it by the chief.
If we had gone in now we should have been looked on as having come
under considerable obligations.

_8th March, 1867._--We went on to a village on the Looembe, where the
people showed an opposite disposition, for not a soul was in it--all
were out at their farms. When the good wife of the place came she gave
us all huts, which saved us from a pelting shower. The boys herding
the goats did not stir as we passed down the sides of the lovely
valley. The Looembe looks a sluggish stream from a distance. The
herdsman said we were welcome, and he would show the crossing next
day, he also cooked some food for us.

Guided by our host, we went along the Looembe westwards till we reached
the bridge (rather a rickety affair), which, when the water is low may
be used as a weir. The Looembe main stream is 66 feet wide, 6 feet
deep, with at least 200 feet of flood beyond it. The water was knee
deep on the bridge, but clear; the flooded part beyond was waist deep
and the water flowing fast.

All the people are now transplanting tobacco from the spaces under the
eaves of the huts into the fields. It seems unable to bear the greater
heat of summer: they plant also a kind of liranda, proper for the cold
weather. We thought that we were conferring a boon in giving peas, but
we found them generally propagated all over the country already, and
in the cold time too. We went along the Diola River to an old hut and
made a fire; thence across country to another river, called Loendawe,
6 feet wide, and 9 feet deep.

_10th March, 1867._--I have been ill of fever ever since we left
Moamba's; every step I take jars in the chest, and I am very weak; I
can scarcely keep up the march, though formerly I was always first,
and had to hold in my pace not to leave the people altogether. I have
a constant singing in the ears, and can scarcely hear the loud tick
of the chronometers. The appetite is good, but we have no proper food,
chiefly maere meal or beans, or mapemba or ground-nuts, rarely a fowl.

The country is full of hopo-hedges, but the animals are harassed, and
we never see them.

_11th March, 1867._.--Detained by a set-in rain. Marks on masses of
dolomite elicited the information that a party of Londa smiths came
once to this smelting ground and erected their