The Ambarré, otherwise Nyumbo plant, has a pea-shaped, or rather papilionaceous flower, with a fine scent. It seems to grow quite wild; its flowers are yellow.
Chaola is the poison used by the Maravi for their arrows, it is said to cause mortification.
One of the wonders usually told of us in this upland region is that we sleep without fire. The boys' blankets suffice for warmth during the night, when the thermometer sinks to 64°-60°, but no one else has covering sufficient; some huts in process of building here show that a thick coating of plaster is put on outside the roof before the grass thatch is applied; not a chink is left for the admission of air.
Ohitikola was absent from Paritala when we arrived on some milando or other. These milandos are the business of their lives. They are like petty lawsuits; if one trespasses on his neighbour's rights in any way it is a milando, and the headmen of all the villages about are called on to settle it. Women are a fruitful source of milando. A few ears of Indian corn had been taken by a person, and Chitikola had been called a full day's journey off to settle this milando. He administered Muavé[33] and the person vomited, therefore innocence was clearly established! He came in the evening of the 21st footsore and tired, and at once gave us some beer. This perpetual reference to food and drink is natural, inasmuch as it is the most important point in our intercourse. While the chief was absent we got nothing; the queen even begged a little meat for her child, who was recovering from an attack of small-pox. There being no shops we had to sit still without food. I took observations for longitude, and whiled away the time by calculating the lunars. Next day the chief gave us a goat cooked whole and plenty of porridge: I noticed that he too had the Assyrian type of face.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Dr. Livingstone's description of the "Sponge" will stand the reader in good stead when he comes to the constant mention of these obstructions in the later travels towards the north.—ED.
[26] So named when Dr. Livingstone, Dr. Kirk, and Mr. Charles Livingstone, discovered Lake Nyassa together.
[27] The sheep are of the black-haired variety: their tails grow to an enormous size. A rain which came from Nunkajowa, a Waiyau chief, on a former occasion, was found to have a tail weighing 11 lbs.; but for the journey, and two or three days short commons, an extra 2 or 3 lbs. of fat «would have been on it.—ED.
[28] This complaint has not been reported as an African disease before; it probably clings to the higher levels.—ED.
[29] A fine fibre derived from the shoots of a shrub (Securidaca Longipedunculata).