4th June, 1866.—Left Ngomano. I was obliged to tell the Nassick boys that they must either work or return, it was absurd to have them eating up our goods, and not even carrying their own things, and I would submit to it no more: five of them carry bales, and two the luggage of the rest. Abraham and Richard are behind. I gave them bales to carry, and promised them ten rupees per month, to begin on this date. Abraham has worked hard all along, and his pay may be due from 7th April, the day we started from Kindany.
5th June, 1866.—We slept at a village called Lamba, on the banks of the Rovuma, near a brawling torrent of 150 yards, or 200 perhaps, with many islands and rocks in it. The country is covered with open forest, with patches of cultivation everywhere, but all dried up at present and withered, partly from drought and partly from the cold of winter. We passed a village with good ripe sorghum cut down, and the heads or ears all laid neatly in a row, this is to get it dried in the sun, and not shaken out by the wind, by waving to and fro; besides it is also more easily watched from being plundered by birds. The sorghum occasionally does not yield seed, and is then the Sorghum saccharatum, for the stalk contains abundance of sugar, and is much relished by the natives. Now that so much has failed to yield seed, being indeed just in flower, the stalks are chewed as if sugar-cane, and the people are fat thereon; but the hungry time is in store when these stalles are all done. They make the best provision in their power against famine by planting beans and maize in moist spots. The common native pumpkin forms a bastard sort in the same way, but that is considered very inferior.
6th June, 1866.—Great hills of granite are occasionally in sight towards the north, but the trees, though scraggy, close in the view. We left a village, called Mekosi, and goon came to a slaving party by a sand stream. They said that they had bought two slaves, but they had run away from them, and asked us to remain with them; more civil than inviting. We came on to Makochera, the principal headman in this quarter, and found him a merry laughing mortal, without any good looks to recommend his genial smile,—low forehead, covered with deep wrinkles; flat nose, somewhat of the Assyrian shape; a big mouth and lean body. He complained of the Machinga (a Waiyau tribe north of him and the Rovuma) stealing his people. Lat. of village, 11° 22' 49" S. The river being about 2' north, still shows that it makes a trend to the north after we pass Ngomano. Makochera has been an elephant hunter. Few acknowledge as a reason for slaving that sowing and spinning cotton for clothing is painful. I waited some days for the Nassick boys, who are behind, though we could not buy any food except at enormous prices and long distances off.
7th June, 1866.—The havildar and two sepoys came up with Abraham, but Richard, a Nassick boy, is still behind from weakness. I sent three off to help him with the only cordials we could muster. The sepoys sometimes profess inability to come on, but it is unwillingness to encounter hardship: I must move on whether they come or not, for we cannot obtain food here. I sent the sepoys some cloth, and on the 8th proposed to start, but every particle of food had been devoured the night before, so we despatched two parties to scour the country round, and give any price rather than want.
I could not prevail on Makochera to give me a specimen of poetry; he was afraid, neither he nor his forefathers had ever seen an Englishman. He thought that God was not good because He killed so many people. Dr. Roscher must have travelled as an Arab if he came this way, for he was not known.[10]
9th June, 1866.—We now left and marched through the same sort of forest, gradually ascending in altitude as we went west, then we came to huge masses of granite, or syenite, with flakes peeling off. They are covered with a plant with grassy-looking leaves and rough stalk which strips into portions similar to what are put round candles as ornaments. It makes these hills look light grey, with patches of black rock at the more perpendicular parts; the same at about ten miles off look dark blue. The ground is often hard and stony, but all covered over with grass and plants: looking down at it, the grass is in tufts, and like that on the Kalahari desert. Trees show uplands. One tree of which bark cloth is made, pterocarpus, is abundant. Timber-trees appear here and there, but for the most part the growth is stunted, and few are higher than thirty feet. We spent the night by a hill of the usual rounded form, called Njeñgo. The Rovuma comes close by, but leaves us again to wind among similar great masses. Lat. 11° 20' 05" S.
10th June, 1866.—A very heavy march through the same kind of country, no human habitation appearing; we passed a dead body—recently, it was said, starved to death. The large tract between Makochera's and our next station at Ngozo hill is without any perennial stream; water is found often by digging in the sand streams which we several times crossed; sometimes it was a trickling rill, but I suspect that at other seasons all is dry, and people are made dependent on the Rovuma alone. The first evidence of our being near the pleasant haunts of man was a nice little woman drawing water at a well. I had become separated from the rest: on giving me water she knelt down, and, as country manners require, held it up to me with both hands. I had been misled by one of the carriers, who got confused, though the rounded mass of Ngozo was plainly visible from the heights we crossed east of it.
An Arab party bolted on hearing of our approach: they don't trust the English, and this conduct increases our importance among the natives. Lat. 11° 18' 10" S.
11th June, 1866.—Our carriers refuse to go further, because they say that they fear being captured here on their return.
12th June, 1866.—I paid off the carriers, and wait for a set from this. A respectable man, called Makoloya, or Impandé, visited me, and wished to ask some questions as to where I was going, and how long I should be away. He had heard from a man who came from Ibo, or Wibo, about the Bible, a large book which was consulted.