nd he bolted on the first opportunity; the
forest being so dense he was soon out of reach of pursuit: he had been
advised to this by Kavimba, and nothing else need have been expected.
We then followed the track of a travelling party of Babisa, but the
grass springs up over the paths, and it was soon lost: the rain had
fallen early in these parts, and the grass was all in seed. In the
afternoon we came to the hills in the north where Nyamazi rises, and
went up the bed of a rivulet for some time, and then ascended out of
the valley. At the bottom of the ascent and in the rivulet the shingle
stratum was sometimes fifty feet thick, then as we ascended we met
mica schist tilted on edge, then grey gneiss, and last an igneous trap
among quartz rocks, with a great deal of bright mica and talc in them.
On resting near the top of the first ascent two honey hunters came to
us. They were using the honey-guide as an aid, the bird came to us as
they arrived, waited quietly during the half-hour they smoked and
chatted, and then went on with them.[41]

The tsetse flies, which were very numerous at the bottom, came up the
ascent with us, but as we increased our altitude by another thousand
feet they gradually dropped off and left us: only one remained in the
evening, and he seemed out of spirits. Near sunset we encamped by
water on the cool height, and made our shelters with boughs of leafy
trees; mine was rendered perfect by Dr. Stenhouse's invaluable patent
cloth, which is very superior to mackintosh: indeed the india-rubber
cloth is not to be named in the same day with it.

_28th December, 1866._--Three men, going to hunt bees, came to us as
we were starting and assured us that Moerwa's was near. The first
party had told us the same thing, and so often have we gone long
distances as "_pafupi_" (near), when in reality they were "_patari_"
(far), that we begin to think _pafupi_ means "I wish you to go there,"
and _patari_ the reverse. In this case _near_ meant an hour and
three-quarters from our sleeping-place to Moerwa's!

When we look back from the height to which we have ascended we see a
great plain clothed with dark green forest except at the line of
yellowish grass, where probably the Loangwa flows. On the east and
south-east this plain is bounded at the extreme range of our vision by
a wall of dim blue mountains forty or fifty miles off. The Loangwa is
said to rise in the Chibale country due north of this Malambwe (in
which d