nduce him to do it if she refused. The
Portuguese praised the appearance of the Banyai, and they certainly are
a fine race.

We got on better with Nyakoba than we expected. He has been so much
affected by the sesenda that he is quite decrepit, and requires to be
fed. I at once showed his messenger that we had nothing whatever
to give. Nyakoba was offended with him for not believing me, and he
immediately sent a basket of maize and another of corn, saying that he
believed my statement, and would send men with me to Tete who would not
lead me to any other village.

The birds here sing very sweetly, and I thought I heard the canary,
as in Londa. We had a heavy shower of rain, and I observed that the
thermometer sank 14 Deg. in one hour afterward. From the beginning of
February we experienced a sensible diminution of temperature. In January
the lowest was 75 Deg., and that at sunrise; the average at the same
hour (sunrise) being 79 Deg.; at 3 P.M., 90 Deg.; and at sunset, 82 Deg.
In February it fell as low as 70 Deg. in the course of the night, and
the average height was 88 Deg. Only once did it rise to 94 Deg., and a
thunder-storm followed this; yet the sensation of heat was greater now
than it had been at much higher temperatures on more elevated lands.

We passed several villages by going roundabout ways through the forest.
We saw the remains of a lion that had been killed by a buffalo, and the
horns of a putokwane (black antelope), the finest I had ever seen, which
had met its death by a lion. The drums, beating all night in one village
near which we slept, showed that some person in it had finished his
course. On the occasion of the death of a chief, a trader is liable to
be robbed, for the people consider themselves not amenable to law until
a new one is elected. We continued a very winding course, in order to
avoid the chief Katolosa, who is said to levy large sums upon those who
fall into his hands. One of our guides was a fine, tall young man, the
very image of Ben Habib the Arab. They were carrying dried buffalo's
meat to the market at Tete as a private speculation.

A great many of the Banyai are of a light coffee-and-milk color, and,
indeed, this color is considered handsome throughout the whole country,
a fair complexion being as much a test of beauty with them as with
us. As they draw out their hair into small cords a foot in length, and
entwine the inner bark of a certain tree round each separate cord, and