Chap. XIX. EAGER OFFER OF SERVICES. 3G5 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Fresh start for Lake Nyassa — Carry a boat past the cataracts — Humpbacked 

 spokesman — Lakelet Pamalombe — Indications of malaria — Lake Nyassa 



— Depth — Size — Shape — Bays — Mountains and storms — Crowds of 

 people ' — Midge cake — Fish, sanjika, &c. — Apparent laziness of the people 



— Torpidity of skin — Buaze nets — Bark cloth — Beauty a la " pelele" — 

 Marenga's generosity — Horrors of inland slave-trade — Thieves ; the first 

 robbery we suffered in Africa — Native graves — Mazitu or Zulus — Four 

 days' separation — Rough roads — Man's enemy, man — Our Dice Diviner 

 vanishes ; but reappears — Elephants — Arabs from Katanga — Arab geo- 

 graphy of Tanganyika and Nyassa — The slave-trade — Reed huts in papyrus 



— Young women got up for sale — Sensible old woman — Meet marauding 

 Ajawa at Mikena's — Elephants' athletic sports. 



On the 6tli of August, 1861 , a few days after returning 

 from Magomero, Drs. Livingstone and Kirk, and Charles 

 Livingstone started for Nyassa with a light four-oared gig, 

 a white sailor, and a score of attendants. We hired people 

 along the path to carry the boat past the forty miles of the 

 Murchison Cataracts for a cubit of cotton cloth a day. 

 This being deemed great wages, more than twice the men 

 required eagerly offered their services. The chief difficulty 

 was in limiting their numbers. Crowds followed us ; and, 

 had we not taken down in the morning the names of the 

 porters engaged, in the evening claims would have been 

 made by those who only helped during the last ten minutes 

 of the journey. The men of one village carried the boat to 

 the next, and all we had to do Avas to tell the headman that 

 we wanted fresh men in the morning. He saw us pay the 

 first party, and had his men ready at the time appointed, 

 so there was no delay in waiting for carriers. They often 

 make a loud noise when carrying heavy loads, but talking 



