234 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



certain price. This, however, had to be paid in 

 advance, in accordance with a custom which is 

 general throughout every portion of the Portuguese 

 dominions in South-East Africa a custom which is 

 most humiliating to the pride of an Englishman, as 

 it seems to say, " By bitter experience we black 

 people have learnt that white men will cheat us if 

 they can, and therefore we do not trust them." 



At last everything was ready, and I was able to 

 start on my journey at about two o'clock, accom- 

 panied by my four lady carriers and Longman, the 

 Zulu, whom Mr. Wissels had most kindly given me 

 to act as guide and headman. That afternoon we 

 walked for about three hours, and slept at a small 

 Amatonga kraal on a rise above the Maputa river. 

 The country through which we travelled was neither 

 flat nor hilly, but consisted of a succession of un- 

 dulating rises separated by boggy streams. The 

 soil on the surface was of pure white sand, which 

 rendered the walking very heavy. These sandy 

 rises were for the most part free of trees or bush, 

 though patches of thorny scrub were to be seen 

 here and there, as well as some large thorn trees in 

 the hollows. 



The Amatonga about here seem to live in families 

 rather than in large communities, as we passed several 

 kraals, none of which contained more than half-a- 

 dozen huts. Each little community seemed to 

 possess a few head of cattle of a small breed, which 

 is probably identical with that found throughout 

 Eastern and South Central Africa, though in certain 

 localities it has become very dwaried. At the time 

 of my visit to Amatongaland the people were very 

 badly off for food, as for several successive years 

 their crops had more or less been destroyed by a 

 wing of that mighty army of locusts by which the 

 whole of South- Eastern and South Central Africa 

 has been devastated continually ever since 1890. 



