xii REACH THE MAPUTA RIVER 235 



Arrived at our destination for the night, a hut 

 was placed at my disposal by the headman of the 

 village, which I found perfectly clean, and free 

 from anything which might have made it interest- 

 ing to an entomologist. Indeed, I will here say 

 that I found all the Amatonga huts in which I slept 

 during this trip perfectly clean and comfortable. 

 The people themselves are too well known to need 

 any detailed description. They are nearly allied to 

 the Zulus in race, language, and general appear- 

 ance, and most of them understand and speak pure 

 Zulu. In their own dialect, which I was not able 

 to follow, the letter " h " is very noticeable ; for 

 instance, the Zulu word "inkuku," a fowl, becomes 

 " huku " in Satonga. I found no difficulty in 

 understanding them when they spoke Zulu, or in 

 making them understand " Sintabele," the native 

 language with which I am best acquainted, and 

 which is itself a dialect of Zulu. 



On waking the following morning, I found that 

 the weather looked very threatening, as the clouds 

 had become quite thick, and rain was evidently near 

 at hand. However, after a good deal of opposition 

 on the part of my lady porters had been overcome, 

 we made a fairly early start, and soon reached the 

 Maputa river at the place where we had to cross it 

 in a native ferry boat, which proved to be merely a 

 very disreputable-looking old dug-out canoe. 



On our way here we passed along the edge of a 

 marsh, and as we were doing so I heard a reedbuck 

 whistle, but as the morning was very dull and 

 misty, neither Longman nor I could at first see any 

 sign of the animal that had thus needlessly betrayed 

 its existence. However, after walking a short 

 distance in the direction from which the sound had 

 proceeded, we made out three reedbucks, which, as 

 they ran from behind some reeds into the open 

 ground, I saw were a rani and two ewes. They 



