START FOR LAKE NYASSA. 381 



attempting further explorations, to return to Tete for additional 

 supplies, and it was the 28th of August before they left their 

 craft under the shadow of Chibisa's village and set out in search 

 of the far-famed Lake Nyassa. It may not have been necessary 

 for as many as forty-two men to set forth on such a journey ; 

 but the advantage of numbers and guns, in the impressions they 

 convey of strength, and the lessons they suggest of kindness and 

 politeness, more than makes up for the greater trouble and 

 expense of their support. And it was particularly important, 

 on this journey, that there should be a reasonable display of 

 strength, because their path lay across the territory of most 

 unfriendly people, with whom it was of the greatest importance 

 that there be no conflict. 



Following the course of a beautifully-flowing stream, in a 

 northeasterly direction across the valley, they passed many gar- 

 dens where cotton was growing luxuriantly. An hour's march 

 brought them to the foot of the Manganja hills, up which their 

 toilsome road must lead them. The vegetation changed as they 

 ascended ; new trees and plants received them ; and, as they 

 climbed higher and higher, a wider and more charming land- 

 scape stretched away behind them. Looking back from an 

 elevation of a thousand feet, the eye could take in the whole of 

 a charming valley, with its silvery stream flowing in many 

 windings from the shadows of the hills toward the Shire. The 

 Shire itself could be seen for many miles above and below Chi- 

 bisa's, and the great level country beyond, with its numerous 

 green woods ; until the prospect west and northwest ended on 

 the peaks of massive dome-shaped mountains that far away 

 fringe the highlands of the Maravi country. On the first of 

 the terraces of these hills the party found the village of Chi- 

 timba, nestling in a woody hollow, and surrounded by the 

 characteristic hedge of poisonous euphorbia, and sat down under 

 some fine trees, as strangers are wont to do, near the entrance 

 of the village. A couple of mats were spread for the white men 

 to sit on ; and the head man brought a seguati, or present, of a 

 small goat and a basket of meal. The full value in beads and 

 cotton cloth was handed to him in return. He measured the 

 cloth, doubled it, and then measured that again. The beads 

 were scrutinized ; he had never seen beads of that color before, 



