486 THE EIVI-RIVL Chap. XXIV. 



mice, we ascertained that there was no hope of our being 

 able to buy food anywhere nearer than the Lakelet Parna- 

 lombe, where the Ajawa Chief, Kainka, was now living ; but 

 that plenty could be found with the Maravi female Chief, 

 Nyango. We turned away north-westwards, and struck the 

 stream Ribve-ribve, or Rivi-rivi, which rises in the Maravi 

 range, and flows into the Shire. Here, except below its 

 sandy bed, the channel was without any water, but higher 

 up it has pools at intervals with dry spaces between, and 

 still further west it becomes a fast-flowing stream, forty 

 feet wide, and one or two feet deep. Its name implies that 

 it has Cataracts in it, and the sanjika ascends it to spawn ; 

 but the evaporation is so great in the hot season, that be- 

 fore it reaches the Shire it is quite dry. 



The country here has been divided into districts, that on 

 the south of the Rivi-rivi is called Nkwesi, and that on the 

 north, Banda ; and these extend along the boundary stream 

 from its source to its confluence. This is interesting, as indi- 

 cating an appreciation of the value of land. In many parts 

 the idea has not taken root, and any one may make a garden 

 wherever he pleases. The garden becomes property, the un- 

 cultivated land no one claims. The villages, of the number 

 of which we never previously had the smallest idea, from 

 our route having been along the river, seem always to have 

 been selected with a view to shade — they were now all de- 

 serted. The lofty sterculias, with trunks of fifty feet without 

 a branch, of a yellowish-green, stand around, and many of 

 the huts have been overshadowed by wide-spreading wild 

 fig-trees, on which the elephants now feed undisturbed. The 

 ground was strewn with branches which they had broken off. 

 One species of sterculia has roundish pods the size of one's 

 fist, with seeds covered with canary-coloured pulp which 

 yields abundance of fine oil. The motsikiri-trees have also 



