CHAPTER XXII. 



ABOUT NYASSA. 



Geological Notes — The Marenga — Livingstone Preaching — Small-Pox — Inveter- 

 ate Thieves — Kirk's Eange — Love Token — Black -haired Sheep — Earthquakes 

 — A Toper Chief— A Royal Escort — Whooping-Cough — The Hottest Month — 

 Methods of Fertilization — No Animals — Bows and Arrows — Lip-Ring — A Pro- 

 phetic Cow — Iron Works — Village of Smiths — Alarm of Mazitu — Native 

 Furnaces — Livingstone's Patience — A Disagreeable Head Man — Level Country 

 — Portuguese Travellers — A Herd of Buffaloes — Industry — Wild Figs — A 

 Formidable Stockade — Trying News — A Steady Faith. 



On the 21st of September, 1866, Livingstone marched to- 

 wards the west, crossing Cape Maclear. They crossed hills 

 about seven hundred feet above Nyassa; these were covered with 

 trees and quite desolate — no inhabitants to be seen. They en- 

 camped near the Sikoche. Here the rocks were hardened sand- 

 stone, resting on mica-schist, which had an efflorescence of alum 

 on it; above this was dolomite; the hills were often capped with 

 it and oak -spar, giving a snowy appearance. After seven hours 

 of hard travel they arrived at a village where they spent the 

 Sabbath by the Usangasi, and near a remarkable mountain, 

 Xamasi. This tribe, or rather the Machinga, now supersede 

 the Manganja. He speaks of a marked difference in the villages 

 of the latter and the Waiyau, who have handsome straw and 

 reed fences around their huts, making their villages look much 

 neater. They next stopped at a village of Marenga, quite a 

 large one, at the bottom of the lake on the eastern side. Find- 

 ing the chief quite ill and having a loathsome disease it was 

 impossible for him to come to Livingstone. Many of the people 

 had gone to the coast as traders, and returning with arms and 

 ammunition helped the Waiyau in their forays on the Manganja, 

 and finally set themselves up as an independent tribe. They 

 cultivate largely, and have cattle, but do not milk them. The 

 sponges here, which are formed by the vegetation, " which is not 



healthy and falls and rots and then forms thick loam of a blackish 



463 



