of the English. The town is on the east bank of the Lakelet
Mofwe, and one mile from its northern end. Mohamad bin Saleh now met
us, his men firing guns of welcome; he conducted us to his shed of
reception, and then gave us a hut till we could build one of our own.
Mohamad is a fine portly black Arab, with a pleasant smile, and pure
white beard, and has been more than ten years in these parts, and
lived with four Casembes: he has considerable influence here, and also
on Tanganyika.

An Arab trader, Mohamad Bogharib, who arrived seven days before us
with an immense number of slaves, presented a meal of vermicelli, oil,
and honey, also cassava meal cooked, so as to resemble a sweet meat (I
had not tasted honey or sugar since we left Lake Nyassa, in September
1866): they had coffee too.

Neither goats, sheep, nor cattle thrive here, so the people are
confined to fowls and fish. Cassava is very extensively cultivated,
indeed, so generally is this plant grown, that it is impossible to
know which is town and which is country: every hut has a plantation
around it, in which is grown cassava, Holcus sorghum, maize, beans,
nuts.

Mohamad gives the same account of the River Luapula and Lake Bemba
that Jumbe did, but he adds, that the Chambeze, where we crossed it,
_is_ the Luapula before it enters Bemba or Bangweolo: on coming out of
that Lake it turns round and comes away to the north, as Luapula, and,
without touching the Mofwe, goes into Moero; then, emerging thence at
the north-west end it becomes Lualaba, goes into Rua, forms a lake
there, and afterwards goes into another lake beyond Tanganyika.

The Lakelet Mofwe fills during the rains and spreads westward, much
beyond its banks. Elephants wandering in its mud flats when covered
are annually killed in numbers: if it were connected with the Lake
Moero the flood would run off.

Many of Casembe's people appear with the ears cropped and hands lopped
off: the present chief has been often guilty of this barbarity. One
man has just come to us without ears or hands: he tries to excite our
pity making a chirruping noise, by striking his cheeks with the
stumps of his hands.

A dwarf also, one Zofu, with backbone broken, comes about us: he talks
with an air of authority, and is present at all public occurrences:
the people seem to bear with him. He is a stranger from a tribe in the
north, and works in his garden very briskly: his height is 3 feet 9
inches.

FOOTNOTES:

[56]