4th May, 1866.—The stream, embowered in perpetual shade and overspread with the roots of water-loving, broad-leaved trees, we found to be called Nkonya. The spot of our encampment was an island formed by a branch of it parting and re-entering it again: the owner had used it for rice.
The buffaloes were bitten again by tsetse on 2nd, and also to-day, from the bites of other flies (which look much more formidable than tsetse), blood of arterial colour flows down; this symptom I never saw before, but when we slaughtered an ox which had been tsetse bitten, we observed that the blood had the arterial hue. The cow has inflammation of one eye, and a swelling on the right lumbar portion of the pelvis: the grey buffalo has been sick, but this I attribute to unmerciful loading; for his back is hurt: the camels do not seem to feel the fly, though they get weaker from the horrid running sores upon them and hard work. There are no symptoms of tsetse in mules or donkeys, but one mule has had his shoulder sprained, and he cannot stoop to eat or drink.
We saw the last of the flanking range on the north. The country in front is plain, with a few detached granitic peaks shot up. The Makoa in large numbers live at the end of the range in a place called Nyuchi. At Nyamba, a village where we spent the night of the 5th, was a doctoress and rain-maker, who presented a large basket of soroko, or, as they call it in India, "mung," and a fowl. She is tall and well made, with fine limbs and feet, and was profusely tattooed all over; even her hips and buttocks had their elaborate markings: no shame is felt in exposing these parts.
A good deal of salt is made by lixiviation of the soil and evaporating by fire. The head woman had a tame khanga tolé or tufted guinea-fowl, with bluish instead of white spots.
In passing along westwards after leaving the end of the range, we came first of all on sandstone hardened by fire; then masses of granite, as if in that had been contained the igneous agency of partial metamorphosis; it had also lifted up the sandstone, so as to cause a dip to the east. Then the syenite or granite seemed as if it had been melted, for it was all in striae, which striae, as they do elsewhere, run east and west. With the change in geological structure we get a different vegetation. Instead of the laurel-leaved trees of various kinds, we have African ebonies, acacias, and mimosae: the grass is shorter and more sparse, and we can move along without wood-cutting. We were now opposite a hill on the south called Simba, a lion, from its supposed resemblance to that animal. A large Mabiha population live there, and make raids occasionally over to this side for slaves.
6th May, 1866.—Tsetse again. The animals look drowsy. The cow's eye is dimmed; when punctured, the skin emits a stream of scarlet blood. The people hereabouts seem intelligent and respectful. At service a man began to talk, but when I said, "Ku soma Mlungu,"—"we wish to pray to God," he desisted. It would be interesting to know what the ideas of these men are, and to ascertain what they have gained in their communings with nature during the ages past. They do not give the idea of that boisterous wickedness and disregard of life which we read of in our own dark ages, but I have no one to translate, although I can understand much of what is said on common topics chiefly from knowing other dialects.
7th May, 1866.—A camel died during the night, and the grey buffalo is in convulsions this morning. The cruelty of these sepoys vitiates my experiment, and I quite expect many camels, one buffalo, and one mule to die yet; they sit down and smoke and eat, leaving the animals loaded in the sun. If I am not with them, it is a constant dawdling; they are evidently unwilling to exert themselves, they cannot carry their belts and bags, and their powers of eating and vomiting are astounding. The Makondé villages are remarkably clean, but no sooner do we pass a night in one than the fellows make it filthy. The climate does give a sharp appetite, but these sepoys indulge it till relieved by vomiting and purging. First of all they breakfast, then an hour afterwards they are sitting eating the pocketfuls of corn maize they have stolen and brought for the purpose, whilst I have to go ahead, otherwise we may be misled into a zigzag course to see Ali's friends; and if I remain behind to keep the sepoys on the move, it deprives me of all the pleasure of travelling. We have not averaged four miles a day in a straight line, yet the animals have often been kept in the sun for eight hours at a stretch. When we get up at 4 A.M. we cannot get under weigh before 8 o'clock. Sepoys are a mistake.
7th May, 1866.—We are now opposite a mountain called Nabungala, which resembles from the north-east an elephant lying down. Another camel, a very good one, died on the way: its shiverings and convulsions are not at all like what we observed in horses and oxen killed by tsetse, but such may lie the cause, however. The only symptom pointing to the tsetse is the arterial-looking blood, but we never saw it ooze from the skin after the bite of the gad-fly as we do now.
8th May, 1866.—We arrived at a village called Jpondé, or Lipondé, which lies opposite a granitic hill on the other-side of the river (where we spent a night on our boat trip), called Nakapuri; this is rather odd, for the words are not Makondé but Sichuana, and signify goat's horn, from the projections jutting out from the rest of the mass. I left the havildar, sepoys, and Nassick boys here in order to make a forced march forward, where no food is to be had, and send either to the south or westwards for supplies, so that after they have rested the animals and themselves five days they may come. One mule is very ill; one buffalo drowsy and exhausted; one camel a mere skeleton from bad sores; and another has an enormous hole at the point of the pelvis, which sticks out at the side. I suspect that this was made maliciously, for he came from the field bleeding profusely; no tree would have perforated a round hole in this way. I take all the goods and leave only the sepoys' luggage, which is enough for all the animals now.
9th May, 1866.—I went on with the Johanna men and twenty-four carriers, for it was a pleasure to get away from the sepoys and Nassick boys; the two combined to overload the animals. I told them repeatedly that they would kill them, but no sooner had I adjusted the burdens and turned my back than they put on all their things. It was however such continual vexation to contend with the sneaking spirit, that I gave up annoying myself by seeing matters, though I felt certain that the animals would all be killed. We did at least eight miles pleasantly well, and slept at Moedaa village. The rocks are still syenite. We passed a valley with the large thorny acacias of which canoes are often made, and a euphorbiaceous tree, with seed-vessels as large as mandarin oranges, with three seeds inside. We were now in a country which, in addition to the Mazitu invasion, was suffering from one of those inexplicable droughts to which limited and sometimes large portions of this country are subject. It had not been nearly so severe on the opposite or south side, and thither too the Mazitu had not penetrated. Rushes, which plagued us nearer the coast, are not observed now; the grass is all crisp and yellow; many of the plants are dead, and leaves are fallen off the trees as if winter had begun. The ground is covered with open forest, with here and there thick jungle on the banks of the streams. All the rivulets we have passed are mere mountain torrents filled with sand, in which the people dig for water.