442 SOURCES OF THE ROVUMA. Chap. XXI. 



the lake. One man declared that he had seen it with his 

 own eyes as it left the lake, and seemed displeased at being 

 cross-questioned, as if we doubted his veracity. 



More satisfactory information, as it appeared to us, was 

 obtained from others. Two days, or thirty miles, beyond 

 where we turned back, the Bovuma is joined by the Liende, 

 which, coming from the south-west, rises in the mountains on 

 the east side of Nyassa. The great slave route to Kilwa runs 

 up the banks of this river, which is only ankle-deep at the 

 dry season of the year. The Bovuma itself comes from the 

 W.N.W., and after the traveller passes the confluence of the 

 Liende at Ngomano or " meeting-place," the Chief of which 

 part is named Ndonde, he finds the river narrow, and the 

 people Ajawa. 



The Nyamatolo people have a great abundance of food, 

 and they cultivate the land extensively. The island is simply 

 their summer residence ; their permanent villages being in the 

 woods. While hunting, we entered some of these villages, 

 and saw that large quantities of grain were left in them, and 

 in some parts of the forest away from the villages we found 

 many pots of oil-yielding seeds (sesamum), besides grain. 

 The sesamum was offered to us both for sale and as a 

 present, under the name mafuta, or fat ; and small quantities 

 of gum copal were also brought to us, which led us to think 

 that these articles may have been collected by the Arabs. 

 Tobacco, formed into lumps, was abundant and cheap. Cotton- 

 bushes were seen, but no one was observed spinning or 

 weaving cotton for anything but fishing-nets. The article of 

 most value w r as a climbing dye-wood, which attains the thick- 

 ness of a man's leg, and which Dr. Kirk has found experi- 

 mentally to be of considerable value as a fast yellow colour. 

 Baobab-trees on the Bovuma, though not nearly so gigantic in 

 size as those on the Zambesi, bear fruit more than twice as 



