23rd February, 1867.—Moamba's village was a mile off, and on the left bank of the Merengé, a larger stream than the Merungu flowing north and having its banks and oozes covered with fine, tall, straight, evergreen trees. The village is surrounded with a stockade, and a dry ditch some fifteen or twenty feet wide, and as many deep. I had a long talk with Moamba, a big, stout, public-house-looking person, with a slight outward cast in his left eye, but intelligent and hearty. I presented him with a cloth; and he gave me as much maëre meal as a man could carry, with a large basket of ground-nuts. He wished us to come to the Merengé, if not into his village, that he might see and talk with me: I also showed him some pictures in Smith's 'Bible Dictionary,' which he readily understood, and I spoke to him about the Bible. He asked me "to come next day and tell him about prayer to God," this was a natural desire after being told that we prayed.
He was very anxious to know why we were going to Tanganyika; for what we came; what we should buy there; and if I had any relations there. He then showed me some fine large tusks, eight feet six in length. "What do you wish to buy, if not slaves or ivory?" I replied, that the only thing I had seen worth buying was a fine fat chief like him, as a specimen, and a woman feeding him, as he had, with beer. He was tickled at this; and said that when we reached our country, I must put fine clothes on him. This led us to speak of our climate, and the production of wool.
24th February, 1867.—I went over after service, but late, as the rain threatened to be heavy. A case was in process of hearing, and one old man spoke an hour on end, the chief listening all the while with the gravity of a judge. He then delivered his decision in about five minutes, the successful litigant going off lullilooing. Each person, before addressing him, turns his back to him and lies down on the ground, clapping the hands: this is the common mode of salutation. Another form here in Lobemba is to rattle the arrows or an arrow on the bow, which all carry. We had a little talk with the chief; but it was late before the cause was heard through. He asked us to come and spend one night near him on the Merenga, and then go on, so we came over in the morning to the vicinity of his village. A great deal of copper-wire is here made, the wire-drawers using for one part of the process a seven-inch cable. They make very fine wire, and it is used chiefly as leglets and anklets; the chief's wives being laden with them, and obliged to walk in a stately style from the weight: the copper comes from Katanga.
26th February, 1867.—The chief wishes to buy a cloth with two goats, but his men do not bring them up quickly. Simon, one of the boys, is ill of fever, and this induces me to remain, though moving from one place to another is the only remedy we have in our power.
With the chief's men we did not get on well, but with himself all was easy. His men demanded prepayment for canoes to cross the river Loömbé; but in the way that he put it, the request was not unreasonable, as he gave a man to smooth our way, and get canoes, or whatever else was needed, all the way to Chibué's. I gave a cloth when he put it thus, and he presented a goat, a spear ornamented with copper-wire, abundance of meal, and beer, and numbo; so we parted good friends, as his presents were worth the cloth.
Holding a north-westerly course we met with the Chikosho flowing west, and thence came to the Likombé by a high ridge called Losauswa, which runs a long way westward. It is probably a watershed between streams going to the Chambezé and those that go to the northern rivers.
We have the Locopa, Loömbé, Nikéléngé, then Lofubu or Lovu; the last goes north into Liembe, but accounts are very confused. The Chambezé rises in the Mambivé country, which is north-east of Moamba, but near to it.
The forest through which we passed was dense, but scrubby; trees unhealthy and no drainage except through oozes. On the keel which forms a clay soil the rain runs off, and the trees attain a large size. The roads are not soured by the slow process of the ooze drainage. At present all the slopes having loamy or sandy soil are oozes, and full to overflowing; a long time is required for them to discharge their contents. The country generally may be called one covered with forest.
6th March, 1867.—We came after a short march to a village on the Molilanga, flowing east into the Loömbé, here we meet with bananas for the first time, called, as in Lunda, nkondé. A few trophies from Mazitu are hung up: Chitapangwa had twenty-four skulls ornamenting his stockade. The Babemba are decidedly more warlike than any of the tribes south of them: their villages are stockaded, and have deep dry ditches round them, so it is likely that Mochimbé will be effectually checked, and forced to turn his energies to something else than to marauding.
Our man from Moamba here refused to go further, and we were put on the wrong track by the headman wading through three marshes, each at least half a mile broad. The people of the first village we came to shut their gates on us, then came running after us; but we declined to enter their village: it is a way of showing their independence. We made our sheds on a height in spite of their protests. They said that the gates were shut by the boys; but when I pointed out the boy who had done it, he said that he had been ordered to do it by the chief. If we had gone in now we should have been looked on as having come under considerable obligations.