14 PERIODICAL MIGRATIONS 



Portuguese district commandant of Cheringoma, 

 Senhor Alfredo Liebermeister, a very capable 

 and courteous official, and an old and valued 

 friend of mine, he told me to my surprise that 

 in the summer or rainy season Inyaminga was 

 wholly deserted by the two varieties mentioned ; 

 but that buffaloes, which in the dry period 

 were not numerous, returned thither in the hot 

 weather in considerable herds. Buffaloes, of 

 course, are well known for their curious migra- 

 tions — ^for the singular manner in which they 

 appear and disappear over intervals of several 

 months at a time. On the Inyaminga fiats 

 some years ago there was one herd of about forty 

 buffaloes, whose leader was easily recognisable 

 from the circumstance that he possessed only 

 one remarkably large horn, the other having 

 been broken off just at the point of the turn. 

 This herd was known to the natives as (I am not 

 sure if my termination of the word is quite 

 correct, if not it was something very similar), 

 ls[yangalira's family, or Nyangalira's children. 

 They all knew Nyangalira, the old bull leader, 

 quite well, and on certain occasions when 1 have 

 been in the neighbourhood asking after buffaloes, 

 they would tell me quite gravely that Nyangalira's 

 family were either in such and such a place, or 

 had gone away, and would not be back again 

 until the rains came. None knew why or where 

 he went, but I have heard Len9o, my old elephant 

 hunter, say that Nyangalira was possessed of 

 such powerful medicine that he was as fearless 

 of lions as of the younger bulls, and that he 



