TES:

[34] A cloth means two yards of unbleached calico.

[35] Chuma remembers part of the words of her song to be as follows:--

Kowe! kowe! n'andambwi, M'vula leru, korole ko okwe, Waie, ona, kordi,
mvula!

He cannot translate it as it is pure Manganja, but with the exception
of the first line--which relates to a little song-bird with a
beautiful note, it is a mere reiteration "rain will surely come
to-day."--ED.

CHAPTER VII.

Crosses the Loangwa. Distressing march. The king-hunter. Great
hunger. Christmas feast necessarily postponed. Loss of goats.
Honey-hunters. A meal at last. The Babisa. The Mazitu again.
Chitembo's. End of 1866. The new year. The northern brim of the
great Loangwa Valley. Accident to chronometers. Meal gives out.
Escape from a Cobra capella. Pushes for the Chambeze. Death of
Chitane. Great pinch for food. Disastrous loss of medicine
chest. Bead currency. Babisa. The Chambeze. Beaches
Chitapangwa's town. Meets Arab traders from Zanzibar. Sends off
letters. Chitapangwa and his people. Complications.

_16th December, 1866._--We could get no food at any price on 15th, so
we crossed the Loangwa, and judged it to be from seventy to a hundred
yards wide: it is deep at present, and it must always be so, for some
Atumboka submitted to the Mazitu, and ferried them over and back
again. The river is said to rise in the north; it has alluvial banks
with large forest trees along them, bottom sandy, and great sandbanks
are in it like the Zambesi. No guide would come, so we went on without
one. The "lazies" of the party seized the opportunity of remaining
behind--wandering, as they said, though all the cross paths were
marked.[36] This evening we secured the latitude 12 deg. 40' 48" S., which
would make our crossing place about 12 deg. 45' S. Clouds prevented
observations, as they usually do in the rainy season.

_17 December, 1866._--We went on through a bushy country without
paths, and struck the Pamazi, a river of sixty yards wide, in steep
banks and in flood, and held on as well as we could through a very
difficult country, the river forcing us north-west: I heard
hippopotami in it. Game is abundant but wild; we shot two poku
antelopes[37] here, called "tsebulas," which drew a hunter to us, who
consented for meat and pay to show us a ford. He said that the Pamazi
rises in a range of mountains we can now see (in general we could see
no high ground du