t over the spot. So soon as an animal
is killed, every tree is filled with them, but the hunter has only to
cover the meat with boughs or reeds and the vultures are entirely at a
loss--hidden, from view it is hidden altogether: the idea that they
are attracted by their keen sense of smell is altogether
erroneous,--ED.

[48] These letters reached England safely.

[49] It seems almost too ridiculous to believe that we have here the
exact equivalent of the schoolboy's demonstrative "Do you see any
green in my eye?" nevertheless it looks wonderfully like it!--ED.

CHAPTER VIII.

Chitapangwa's parting oath. Course laid for Lake Tanganyika.
Moamba's village. Another watershed. The Babemba tribe. Ill with
fever. Threatening attitude of Chibue's people. Continued
illness. Reaches cliffs overhanging Lake Liemba. Extreme beauty
of the scene. Dangerous fit of insensibility. Leaves the Lake.
Pernambuco cotton. Rumours of war between Arabs and Nsama.
Reaches Chitimba's village. Presents Sultan's letter to
principal Arab Harnees. The war in Itawa. Geography of the
Arabs. Ivory traders and slave-dealers. Appeal to the Koran.
Gleans intelligence of the Wasongo to the eastward, and their
chief, Merere. Harnees sets out against Nsama. Tedious sojourn.
Departure for Ponda. Native cupping.

_20th February, 1867._--I told the chief before starting that my heart
was sore, because he was not sending me away so cordially as I liked.
He at once ordered men to start with us, and gave me a brass knife
with ivory sheath, which he had long worn, as a memorial. He explained
that we ought to go north as, if we made easting, we should ultimately
be obliged to turn west, and all our cloth would be expended ere we
reached the Lake Tanganyika; he took a piece of clay off the ground
and rubbed it on his tongue as an oath that what he said was true, and
came along with us to see that all was right; and so we parted.

We soon ascended the plateau, which encloses with its edge the village
and stream of Molemba. Wild pigs are abundant, and there are marks of
former cultivation. A short march brought us to an ooze, surrounded by
hedges, game-traps, and pitfalls, where, as we are stiff and weak, we
spend the night. Rocks abound of the same dolomite kind as on the
ridge further south, between the Loangwa and Chambeze, covered, like
them, with lichens, orchids, euphorbias, and upland vegetation,
hard