od-by, and Sekelenke himself sent to say that he had gone to visit
a wife living in the village of Manenko. It was a mere African manoeuvre
to gain information, and not commit himself to either one line of action
or another with respect to our visit. As he was probably in the party
before us, I replied that it was all right, and when my people came up
from Masiko I would go to my wife too. Another zebra came to our camp,
and, as we had friends near, it was shot. It was the 'Equus montanus',
though the country is perfectly flat, and was finely marked down to the
feet, as all the zebras are in these parts.

To our first message, offering a visit of explanation to Manenko, we got
an answer, with a basket of manioc roots, that we must remain where we
were till she should visit us. Having waited two days already for her,
other messengers arrived with orders for me to come to her. After four
days of rains and negotiation, I declined going at all, and proceeded
up the river to the small stream Makondo (lat. 13d 23' 12" S.), which
enters the Leeba from the east, and is between twenty and thirty yards
broad.

JANUARY 1ST, 1854. We had heavy rains almost every day; indeed, the
rainy season had fairly set in. Baskets of the purple fruit called mawa
were frequently brought to us by the villagers; not for sale, but from a
belief that their chiefs would be pleased to hear that they had treated
us well; we gave them pieces of meat in return.

When crossing at the confluence of the Leeba and Makondo, one of my men
picked up a bit of a steel watch-chain of English manufacture, and we
were informed that this was the spot where the Mambari cross in
coming to Masiko. Their visits explain why Sekelenke kept his tusks so
carefully. These Mambari are very enterprising merchants: when they mean
to trade with a town, they deliberately begin the affair by building
huts, as if they knew that little business could be transacted without a
liberal allowance of time for palaver. They bring Manchester goods into
the heart of Africa; these cotton prints look so wonderful that the
Makololo could not believe them to be the work of mortal hands. On
questioning the Mambari they were answered that English manufactures
came out of the sea, and beads were gathered on its shore. To Africans
our cotton mills are fairy dreams. "How can the irons spin, weave, and
print so beautifully?" Our country is like what Taprobane was to our
ancestors--a strange realm of