Chap. XXI. DIFFERENCE OF LANGUAGE. ' 431 



visitors, like ourselves and others, are ill able to decide. The 

 absence of bird or animal life was remarkable. Occasionally 

 we saw pairs of the stately jabirus, or adjutant-looking mara- 

 bouts, wading among the shoals, and spurwinged geese, and 

 other water-fowl, but there was scarcely a crocodile or a 

 hippopotamus to be seen. 



At the end of the first week, an old man called at our 

 camp, and said he would send a present from his village, 

 which was up among the hills. He appeared next morning 

 with a number of his people, bringing meal, cassava-root, 

 and yams. The language differs considerably from that on 

 the Zambesi, but it is of the same family. The people are 

 Makonde, and are on friendly terms with the Mabiha, and 

 the Makoa, who live south of the Rovuma. When taking 

 a walk up the slopes of the north bank, we found a great 

 variety of trees we had seen nowhere else. Those usually 

 met with far inland seem here to approach the coast. 

 African ebony, generally named mpingu, is abundant within 

 eight miles of the sea ; it attains a larger size, and has 

 more of the interior black wood than usual. A good timber 

 tree called mosoko is also found ; and we saw half-caste Arabs 

 near the coast cutting up a large log of it into planks. Be- 

 fore reaching the top of the rise we were in a forest of 

 bamboos. On the plateau above, large patches were cleared 

 and cultivated. A man invited us to take a cup of beer ; on 

 our complying with his request, the fear previously shown by 

 the bystanders vanished. Our Mazaro men could hardly 

 understand what they said. Some of them waded in the 

 river and caught a curious fish in holes in the clay bank. 

 Its ventral fin is peculiar, being unusually large, and of a 

 circular shape, like boys' playthings called " suckers." We 

 were told that this fish is found also in the Zambesi, and is 

 called Chirire. Though all its fins are large, it is asserted 



