the loss caused by the Mazitu, who swept the land
like a cloud of locusts, will not be attended by much actual
starvation. We met a runaway woman: she was seized by Ali, and it was
plain that he expected a reward for his pains. He thought she was a
slave, but a quarter of a mile off was the village she had left, and
it being doubtful if she were a runaway at all, the would-be fugitive
slave-capture turned out a failure.

_12th May, 1866._--About 4' E.N.E. of Matawatawa, or Nyamatolole, our
former turning point.

_13th May, 1866._--We halted at a village at Matawatawa. A
pleasant-looking lady, with her face profusely tattooed, came forward
with a bunch of sweet reed, or _Sorghum saceliaratum_, and laid it at
my feet, saying, "I met you here before," pointing to the spot on the
river where we turned. I remember her coming then, and that I asked
the boat to wait while she went to bring us a basket of food, and I
think it was given to Chiko, and no return made. It is sheer
kindliness that prompts them sometimes, though occasionally people do
make presents with a view of getting a larger one in return: it is
pleasant to find that it is not always so. She had a quiet, dignified
manner, both in talking and walking, and I now gave her a small
looking-glass, and she went and brought me her only fowl and a basket
of cucumber-seeds, from which oil is made; from the amount of oily
matter they contain thov are nutritious when roasted and eaten as
nuts. She made an apology, saying they were hungry times at present. I
gave her a cloth, and so parted with Kanangone, or, as her name may be
spelled, Kananone. The carriers were very useless from hunger, and we
could not buy anything for them; for the country is all dried up, and
covered sparsely with mimosas and thorny acacias.

_14th May, 1866._--I could not get the carriers on more than an hour
and three-quarters: men tire very soon on empty stomachs. We had
reached the village of Hassane, opposite to a conical hill named
Chisulwe, which is on the south side of the river, and evidently of
igneous origin. It is tree-covered, while the granite always shows
lumps of naked rock. All about lie great patches of beautiful
dolomite. It may have been formed by baking of the tufa, which in this
country seems always to have been poured out with water after volcanic
action. Hassane's daughter was just lifting a pot of French beans,
boiled in their pods, off the fire when we entered the village,