night, and by
morning. I gave Matipa a coil of thick brass wire, and his wife a string
of large neck beads, and explained my hurry to be off. He is now all
fair, and promises largely: he has been much frightened by our warlike
demonstration. I am glad I had to do nothing but make a show of force.

_22nd March, 1873._--Susi not returned from Kabinga. I hope that he is
getting canoes, and men also, to transport us all at one voyage. It is
flood as far as the eye can reach; flood four and six feet deep, and
more, with three species of rushes, two kinds of lotus, or sacred lily,
papyrus, arum, &c. One does not know where land ends, and Lake begins:
the presence of land-grass proves that this is not always overflowed.

_23rd March, 1873._--Men returned at noon. Kabinga is mourning for his
son killed by an elephant, and keeps in seclusion. The camp is formed on
the left bank of the Chambeze.

_24th March._--The people took the canoes away, but in fear sent for
them. I got four, and started with all our goods, first giving a present
that no blame should follow me. We punted six hours to a little islet
without a tree, and no sooner did we land than a pitiless pelting rain
came on. We turned up a canoe to get shelter. We shall reach the
Chambeze to-morrow. The wind tore the tent out of our hands, and damaged
it too; the loads are all soaked, and with the cold it is bitterly
uncomfortable. A man put my bed into the bilge, and never said "Bale
out," so I was for a wet night, but it turned out better than I
expected. No grass, but we made a bed of the loads, and a blanket
fortunately put into a bag.

_25th March, 1873._--Nothing earthly will make me give up my work in
despair. I encourage myself in the Lord my God, and go forward.

We got off from our miserably small islet of ten yards at 7 A.M., a
grassy sea on all sides, with a few islets in the far distance. Four
varieties of rushes around us, triangular and fluted, rise from eighteen
inches to two feet above the water. The caterpillars seem to eat each
other, and a web is made round others; the numerous spiders may have
been the workmen of the nest. The wind on the rushes makes a sound like
the waves of the sea. The flood extends out in slightly depressed arms
of the Lake for twenty or thirty miles, and far too broad to be seen
across; fish abound, and ant-hills alone lift up their heads; they have
trees on them. Lukutu flows from E. to W. to the Chambeze, as does the
Lub