

Chap. XXV. MINUTE TOPOGRAPHY. 537 



intractable than the metal from ironstone, which needs no 

 flux ; and as-'yet, so far as we can learn, neither tin nor zinc 

 has ever been used to form an amalgam with copper in this 

 country, so that we may expect the bronze age to come in 

 an inverted order. Of the flint age as applied to Africa, we 

 are compelled to doubt, because no flints, with the exception 

 of a few small agates, are to be found in the southern parts 

 of the continent we have examined. A stone period might 

 have its course without flints, as other rocks might have 

 been used, but the evidence must all be underground. 



We made three long marches beyond Muazi's in a north- 

 westerly direction ; the people were civil enough, but refused to 

 sell us any food. We were travelling too fast, they said ; in fact, 

 they were startled, and before they recovered their surprise, we 

 were obliged to depart. We suspected that Muazi had sent them 

 orders to refuse us food, that we might thus be prevented from 

 going into the depopulated district ; but this may have been 

 mere suspicion, the result of our own uncharitable feelings. 



We spent one night at Machambwe's village, and another 

 at Chimbuzi's. It is seldom that we can find the headman on 

 first entering a village. He gets out of the way till he has 

 heard all about the strangers, or he is actually out in the 

 fields looking after his farms. We once thought that when 

 the headman came in from a visit of inspection, with his spear, 

 bow and arrows, they had been all taken up for the occasion, 

 and that he had all the while been hidden in some hut slily 

 watching till he heard that the strangers might be trusted ; 

 but on listening to the details given by these men of the ap- 

 pearances of the crops at different parts, and the astonishing 

 minuteness of the speakers' topography, we were persuaded 

 that in some cases we were wrong, and felt rather humiliated. 

 Every knoll, hill, mountain, and every peak on a range has a 

 name ; and so has every watercourse, dell, and plain. In fact, 



