25th May, 1866.—Matumora is not Ndondé. A chief to the south-west of this owns that name and belongs to the Matumbwé tribe.
26th May, 1866.—I sent Musa westwards to buy food, and he returned on the evening of 27th without success; he found an Arab slave-dealer waiting in the path, who had bought up all the provisions. About 11 P.M. we saw two men pass our door with two women in a chain; one man carried fire in front, the one behind, a musket. Matumora admits that his people sell each other.
27th May, 1866.—The havildar and Abraham came up. Havildar says that all I said in my note was true, and when it was read to the sepoys they bewailed their folly, he adds that if they were all sent away disgraced, no one would be to blame but themselves. He brought them to Hassané's, but they were useless, though they begged to be kept on: I may give them another trial, but at present they are a sad incumbrance. South-west of this the Manganja begin; but if one went by them, there is a space beyond in the south-west without people.
The country due west of this is described by all to be so mountainous and beset by Mazitu, that there is no possibility of passing that way. I must therefore make my way to the middle of the Lake, cross over, and then take up my line of 1863.
2nd June, 1866.—The men sent to the Matambwé south-east of this returned with a good supply of grain. The sepoys won't come; they say they cannot,—a mere excuse, v because they tried to prevail on the Nassick boys to go slowly like them, and wear my patience out. They killed one camel with the butt ends of their muskets, beating it till it died. I thought of going down disarming them all, and taking five or six of the willing ones, but it is more trouble than profit, so I propose to start westwards on Monday the 4th, or Tuesday the 5th. My sepoys offered Ali eight rupees to take them to the coast, thus it has been a regularly organized conspiracy.
From the appearance of the cow-buffalo, I fear the tsetse is its chief enemy, but there is a place like a bayonet wound on its shoulder, and many of the wounds or bruises on the camels were so probed that I suspect the sepoys.
Many things African are possessed of as great vitality in their line as the African people. The white ant was imported accidentally into St. Helena from the coast of Guinea, and has committed such ravages in the town of St. James, that numerous people have been ruined, and the governor calls out for aid against them. In other so-called new countries a wave of English weeds follows the tide of English emigration, and so with insects; the European house-fly chases away the blue-bottle fly in New Zealand. Settlers have carried the house-fly in bottles and boxes for their new locations, but what European insect will follow us and extirpate the tsetse? The Arabs have given the Makondé bugs, but we have the house-fly wherever we go, the blue-bottle and another like the house-fly, but with a sharp proboscis; and several enormous gad-flies. Here there is so much room for everything. In New Zealand the Norwegian rat is driven off by even the European mouse; not to mention the Hanoverian rat of Waterton, which is lord of the land. The Maori say that "as the white man's rat has driven away the native rat, so the European fly drives away our own; and as the clover kills our fern, so will the Maori disappear before the white man himself." The hog placed ashore by Captain Cook has now overrun one side of the island, and is such a nuisance that a large farmer of 100,000 acres has given sixpence per head for the destruction of some 20,000, and without any sensible diminution; this would be no benefit here, for the wild hogs abound and do much damage, besides affording food for the tsetse: the brutes follow the ewes with young, and devour the poor lambs as soon as they make their appearance.
3rd June, 1866.—The cow-buffalo fell down foaming at the mouth, and expired. The meat looks fat and nice, and is relished by the people, a little glariness seemed to be present on the foreleg, and I sometimes think that, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of the symptoms observed in the camels and buffaloes now, and those we saw in oxen and horses, the evil may be the tsetse, after all, but they have been badly used, without a doubt. The calf has a cut half an inch deep, the camels have had large ulcers, and at last a peculiar smell, which portends death. I feel perplexed, and not at all certain as to the real causes of death.
I asked Matumora if the Matambwé believed in God, he replied, that he did not know Him, and I was not to ask the people among whom I was going if they prayed to Him, because they would imagine that I wished them to be killed. I told him that we loved to speak about Him, &c. He said, when they prayed they offered a little meal and then prayed, but did not know much about Him.
They have all great reverence for the Deity, and the deliberate way in which they say "We don't know Him" is to prevent speaking irreverently, as that may injure the country. The name is "Mulungu": Makochera afterwards said, that "He was not good, because He killed so many people."