Chap. VIL LAST OF THE DESERTERS. 163 



come to hini from a distance ; he had none of his own. Like 

 the Manganja, these people salute by clapping their hands. 

 When a man comes to a place where others are seated, before 

 sitting down he claps his hands to each in succession, and they 

 do the same to him. If he has anything to tell, both speaker 

 and hearer clap their hands at the close of every paragraph, 

 and then again vigorously at the end of the speech. The 

 guide, whom the headman gave us, thus saluted each of his 

 comrades before he started off with us. There is so little 

 difference in the language, that all the tribes of this region 

 are virtually of one family. 



"We proceeded still in the same direction, and passed 

 only two small hamlets during the clay. Except the noise 

 our men made on the march, everything was still around us : 

 few birds were seen. The appearance of a whydah-bird 

 showed that he had not yet parted with his fine long plumes. 

 We passed immense quantities of ebony and lignum-vita?, 

 and the tree from whose smooth and bitter bark granaries 

 are made for corn. The country generally is clothed with a 

 forest of ordinary-sized trees. We slept in the little village 

 near Sindabwe, where our men contrived to purchase plenty 

 of beer, and were uncommonly boisterous all the evening. 

 We breakfasted next morning under green wild date- 

 palms, beside the fine flowery stream, which runs through 

 the charming valley of Zibah. We now had Mount Chi- 

 periziwa between us, and part of the river near Morumbwa, 

 having in fact come north about in order to avoid the diffi- 

 culties of our former path. The last of the deserters, a 

 reputed thief, took French leave of us here. He left the 

 bundle of cloth he was carrying in the path a hundred 

 yards in front of where we halted, but made off with the 

 musket and most of the brass rings and beads of his comrade 



m 2 



