9th-10th August, 1869.—Westwards to Makhato's village, and met a company of natives beating a drum as they came near; this is the peace signal; if war is meant the attack is quiet and stealthy. There are plenty of Masuko trees laden with fruit, but unripe. It is cold at night, but dry, and the people sleep with only a fence at their heads, but I have a shed built at every camp as a protection for the loads, and sleep in it.
Any ascent, though gentle, makes me blow since the attack of pneumonia; if it is inclined to an angle of 45°, 100 or 150 yards make me stop to pant in distress.
11th August, 1869.—Came to a village of Ba Rua, surrounded by hills of some 200 feet above the plain; trees sparse.
12th-13th August, 1869.—At villages of Mekhéto. Guha people. Remain to buy and prepare food, and because many are sick.
16th August, 1869.—West and by north through much forest reach Kalalibébé; buffalo killed.
17th August, 1869.—To a high mountain, Golu or Gulu, and sleep at its base.
18th August, 1869.—Cross two rills flowing into River Mgoluyé. Kagoya and Moishé flow into Lobumba.
19th August, 1869.—To the River Lobumba, forty-five yards Avide, thigh deep, and rapid current. Logumba and Lobumba are both from Kabogo Mounts: one goes into Tanganyika, and the other, or Lobumba, into and is the Luamo: prawns are found in this river. The country east of the Lobumba is called Lobanda, that west of it, Kitwa.
21st August, 1869.—Went on to the River Loungwa, which has worn for itself a rut in new red sandstone twenty feet deep, and only three or four feet wide at the lips.
25th August, 1869.—We rest because all are tired; travelling at this season is excessively fatiguing. It is very hot at even 10 A.M., and 2½ or 3 hours tires the strongest—carriers especially so: during the rains five hours would not have fatigued so much as three do now. We are now on the same level as Tanganyika. The dense mass of black smoke rising from the burning grass and reeds on the Lobumba, or Robumba, obscures the sun, and very sensibly lowers the temperature of the sultriest day; it looks like the smoke in Martin's pictures. The Manyuema arrows here are very small, and made of strong grass stalks, but poisoned, the large ones, for elephants and buffaloes, are poisoned also.