nd plastered, here we
noticed them in dozens. On inquiring, we were told that when a child
or relative dies one is made, and when any pleasant food is cooked or
beer brewed, a little is placed in the tiny hut for the departed soul,
which is believed to enjoy it.

The Lokuzhwa is here some fifty yards wide, and running. Numerous
large pitholes in the fine-grained schist in its bed show that much
water has flowed in it.

_8th December, 1866._--A kind of bean called "chitetta" is eaten here,
it is an old acquaintance in the Bechuana country, where it is called
"mositsane," and is a mere plant; here it becomes a tree, from fifteen
to twenty feet high. The root is used for tanning; the bean is
pounded, and then put into a sieve of bark cloth to extract, by
repeated washings, the excessively astringent matter it contains.
Where the people have plenty of water, as here, it is used copiously
in various processes, among Bechuanas it is scarce, and its many uses
unknown: the pod becomes from fifteen to eighteen inches long, and an
inch in diameter.

_9th December, 1866._--A poor child, whose mother had died, was
unprovided for; no one not a relative will nurse another's child. It
called out piteously for its mother by name, and the women (like the
servants in the case of the poet Cowper when a child), said, "She is
coming." I gave it a piece of bread, but it was too far gone, and is
dead to-day.

An alarm of Mazitu sent all the villagers up the sides of Mparawe
this morning. The affair was a chase of a hyaena, but everything is
Mazitu! The Babisa came here, but were surrounded and nearly all cut
off. Muasi was so eager to be off with a party to return the attack on
the Mazitu, that, when deputed by the headman to give us a guide, he
got the man to turn at the first village, so we had to go on without
guides, and made about due north.

_11th December, 1866._--We are now detained in the forest, at a place
called Chonde Forest, by set-in rains. It rains every day, and
generally in the afternoon; but the country is not wetted till the
"set-in" rains commence; the cracks in the soil then fill up and
everything rushes up with astonishing rapidity; the grass is quite
crisp and soft. After the fine-grained schist, we came on granite with
large flakes of talc in it. This forest is of good-sized trees, many
of them mopane. The birds now make much melody and noise--all intent
on building.

_12th December, 1866._--Across an undulati