ddenly, and no one inquires what has
become of them. The temptation to sell their people is peculiarly great,
as there is but little ivory on the hills, and often the chief has
nothing but human flesh with which to buy foreign goods. The Ajawa offer
cloth, brass rings, pottery, and sometimes handsome young women, and
agree to take the trouble of carrying off by night all those whom the
chief may point out to them. They give four yards of cotton cloth for a
man, three for a woman, and two for a boy or girl, to be taken to the
Portuguese at Mozambique, Iboe, and Quillimane.

The Manganja were more suspicious and less hospitable than the tribes on
the Zambesi. They were slow to believe that our object in coming into
their country was really what we professed it to be. They naturally
judge us by the motives which govern themselves. A chief in the Upper
Shire Valley, whose scared looks led our men to christen him Kitlabolawa
(I shall be killed), remarked that parties had come before, with as
plausible a story as ours, and, after a few days, had jumped up and
carried off a number of his people as slaves. We were not allowed to
enter some of the villages in the valley, nor would the inhabitants even
sell us food; Zimika's men, for instance, stood at the entrance of the
euphorbia hedge, and declared we should not pass in. We sat down under a
tree close by. A young fellow made an angry oration, dancing from side
to side with his bow and poisoned arrows, and gesticulating fiercely in
our faces. He was stopped in the middle of his harangue by an old man,
who ordered him to sit down, and not talk to strangers in that way; he
obeyed reluctantly, scowling defiance, and thrusting out his large lips
very significantly. The women were observed leaving the village; and,
suspecting that mischief might ensue, we proceeded on our journey, to the
great disgust of our men. They were very angry with the natives for
their want of hospitality to strangers, and with us, because we would not
allow them to give "the things a thrashing." "This is what comes of
going with white men," they growled out; "had we been with our own chief,
we should have eaten their goats to-night, and had some of themselves to
carry the bundles for us to-morrow." On our return by a path which left
his village on our right, Zimika sent to apologize, saying that "he was
ill, and in another village at the time; it was not by his orders we were
sent away; his men