t is dark green
in colour, and when its bark is taken off it is beautifully striated
beneath, lighter and darker green, like the rings of growth on wood;
still another is a thin string with a succession of large knobs, and
another has its bark pinched up all round at intervals so as to
present a great many cutting edges. One sort need scarcely be
mentioned, in which all along its length are strong bent hooks, placed
in a way that will hold one if it can but grapple with him, for that
is very common and not like those mentioned, which the rather seem to
be stragglers from the carboniferous period of geologists, when
Pachydermata wriggled unscathed among tangled masses worse than these.
We employed about ten jolly young Makonde to deal with these
prehistoric plants in their own way, for they are accustomed to
clearing spaces for gardens, and went at the work with a will, using
tomahawks well adapted for the work. They whittled away right
manfully, taking an axe when any trees had to be cut. Their pay,
arranged beforehand, was to be one yard of calico per day: this is not
much, seeing we are still so near the sea-coast. Climbers and young
trees melted before them like a cloud before the sun! Many more would
have worked than we employed, but we used the precaution of taking
the names of those engaged. The tall men became exhausted soonest,
while the shorter men worked vigorously still--but a couple of days'
hard work seemed to tell on the best of them. It is doubtful if any
but meat-eating people can stand long-continued labour without
exhaustion: the Chinese may be an exception. When French navvies were
first employed they could not do a tithe of the work of our English
ones; but when the French were fed in the same style as the English,
they performed equally well. Here the Makonde have rarely the chance
of a good feed of meat: it is only when one of them is fortunate
enough to spear a wild hog or an antelope that they know this luxury;
if a fowl is eaten they get but a taste of it with their porridge.

_13th April, 1866._--We now began to descend the northern slope down
to the Rovuma, and a glimpse could occasionally be had of the country;
it seemed covered with great masses of dark green forest, but the
undulations occasionally looked like hills, and here and there a
Sterculia had put on yellow foliage in anticipation of the coming
winter. More frequently our vision was circumscribed to a few yards
till our merry woodc