When we came abreast of the peak Chirobve, the people would no longer give us guides.They were afraid of their enemies, whose dwellings we now had on our east; and, proceeding without any one to lead us, or to introduce us to the inhabitants, we were perplexed by all the paths running zigzag across instead of along the valley.They had been made by the villagers going from the hamlets on the slopes to their gardens in the meadows below.To add to our difficulties, the rivulets and mountain-torrents had worn gullies some thirty or forty feet deep, with steep sides that could not be climbed except at certain points.The remaining inhabitants on the flank of the range when they saw strangers winding from side to side, and often attempting to cross these torrent beds at impossible places, screamed out their shrill war-alarm, and made the valley ring with their wild outcries.It was war, and war alone, and we were too deep down in the valley to make our voices heard in explanation.Fortunately, they had burned off the long grass to a great extent.It only here and there hid them from us.Selecting an open spot, we spent a night regarded by all around us as slave-hunters, but were undisturbed, though the usual way of treating an enemy in this part of the country is by night attack.
The nights at the altitude of the valley were cool, the lowest temperature shown being 37 degrees; at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. it was 58 degrees, about the average temperature of the day; at mid-day 82 degrees, and sunset 70 degrees.Our march was very much hindered by the imperfectly burned corn and grass stalks having fallen across the paths.To a reader in England this will seem a very small obstacle.
But he must fancy the grass stems as thick as his little finger, and the corn-stalks like so many walkingsticks lying in one direction, and so supporting each other that one has to lift his feet up as when wading through deep high heather.The stems of grass showed the causes of certain explosions as loud as pistols, which are heard when the annual fires come roaring over the land.The heated air inside expanding bursts the stalk with a loud report, and strews the fragments on the ground.
A very great deal of native corn had been cultivated here, and we saw buffaloes feeding in the deserted gardens, and some women, who ran away very much faster than the beasts did.
On the 29th, seeing some people standing under a tree by a village, we sat down, and sent Masego, one of our party, to communicate.The headman, Matunda, came back with him, bearing a calabash with water for us.He said that all the people had fled from the Ajawa, who had only just desisted from their career of pillage on being paid five persons as a fine for some offence for which they had commenced the invasion.Matunda had plenty of grain to sell, and all the women were soon at work grinding it into meal.We secured an abundant supply, and four milk goats.The Manganja goat is of a very superior breed to the general African animal, being short in the legs and having a finely-shaped broad body.By promising the Makololo that, when we no longer needed the milk, they should have the goats to improve the breed of their own at home, they were induced to take the greatest possible care of both goats and kids in driving and pasturing.
After leaving Matunda, we came to the end of the highland valley;
And, before descending a steep declivity of a thousand feet towards the part which may be called the heel of the Lake, we had the bold mountains of Cape Maclear on our right, with the blue water at their base, the hills of Tsenga in the distance in front, and Kirk's Range on our left, stretching away northwards, and apparently becoming lower.As we came down into a fine rich undulating valley, many perennial streams running to the east from the hills on our left were crossed, while all those behind us on the higher ground seemed to unite in one named Lekue, which flowed into the Lake.
After a long day's march in the valley of the Lake, where the temperature was very much higher than in that we had just left, we entered the village of Katosa, which is situated on the bank of a stream among gigantic timber trees, and found there a large party of Ajawa--Waiau, they called themselves--all armed with muskets.We sat down among them, and were soon called to the chiefs court, and presented with an ample mess of porridge, buffalo meat, and beer.
Katosa was more frank than any Manganja chief we had met, and complimented us by saying that "we must be his 'Bazimo' (good spirits of his ancestors); for when he lived at Pamalombe, we lighted upon him from above--men the like of whom he had never seen before, and coming he knew not whence."He gave us one of his own large and clean huts to sleep in; and we may take this opportunity of saying that the impression we received, from our first journey on the hills among the villages of Chisunse, of the excessive dirtiness of the Manganja, was erroneous.This trait was confined to the cool highlands.Here crowds of men and women were observed to perform their ablutions daily in the stream that ran past their villages; and this we have observed elsewhere to be a common custom with both Manganja and Ajawa.
Before we started on the morning of the 1st September, Katosa sent an enormous calabash of beer, containing at least three gallons, and then came and wished us to "stop a day and eat with him."On explaining to him the reasons for our haste, he said that he was in the way by which travellers usually passed, he never stopped them in their journeys, but would like to look at us for a day.On our promising to rest a little with him on our return, he gave us about two pecks of rice, and three guides to conduct us to a subordinate female chief, Nkwinda, living on the borders of the Lake in front.
