72 THE RIVER ZAMBEZI AND ITS SCENERY 

 permitted to fall into those habits of slackness 

 which beget famine and pestilence in neighbouring 

 territories. 



We now mount into machilas and start across 

 the island for Muterara, two hours' journey hence. 

 During the first few hundred yards we are accom- 

 panied by the whole posse comitatus, who run 

 alongside the machilas, clapping their hands and 

 yelling at the tops of their voices. These gradu- 

 ally tail off, however, and our conveyances, to each 

 of which eight lusty carriers, or machileiros, have 

 been told off, proceed on their way. First ex- 

 tensive fields of maize and millet are passed, and 

 thereafter, still following admirably constructed 

 wide roads, we come into the attractive open 

 country. Many small villages and settlements 

 appear, all the women rushing out to meet us 

 with vociferous songs and hand-clapping, con- 

 tinuing beside the machilas with many remarkably 

 friendly manifestations of good-will for consider- 

 able distances. Their songs betray no mean 

 appreciation of the rudiments of harmony ; thus 

 one woman, selected doubtless for strength of 

 voice — and perhaps also wind — enunciating the 

 kit motif about half a bar in length, and the re- 

 mainder taking up the chorus with much precision 

 and by no means unpleasing effect. Surrounding 

 the villages, the maize and millet gardens, of 

 surprisingly luxuriant growth, have semi-circular 

 spaces many square yards in extent cut, as it were, 

 into them, where we see potatoes, onions, tobacco, 

 tomatoes, and other appreciable vegetables thriving. 

 Soon we traverse a densely wooded portion, con- 



