■26 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. I. 



has not handled it would conceive it to be stone and not 

 wood : the outer surface preserves the grain or woody fibre, 

 the inner is generally silica. 



Buffaloes bitten by tsetse again show no bad effects from 

 it : one mule is, however, dull and out of health ; I thought 

 that this might be the effect of the bite till I found that 

 his back was so strained that he could not stoop to drink, 

 and could only eat the tops of the grasses. An ox would 

 have been ill in two days after the biting on the 7th. 



A carrier stole a shirt, and went off unsuspected ; when 

 the loss was ascertained, the man's companions tracked him 

 with Ben Ali by night, got him in his hut, and then 

 collected the headmen of the village, who fined him about 

 four times the value of what had been stolen. They came 

 back in the morning without seeming to think that they 

 had done aught to be commended ; this was the only case 

 of theft we had noticed, and the treatment showed a natural 

 sense of justice. 



24th April. — We had showers occasionally, but at night 

 all the men were under cover of screens. The fevers were 

 speedily cured; no day was lost by sickness, but we could 

 not march more than a few miles, owing to the slowness 

 of the sepoys ; they are a heavy drag on us, and of no 

 possible use, except when acting as sentries at night. 



When in the way between Kendany and Bovuma, I ob- 

 served a plant here, called Mandare, the root of which is in 

 taste and appearance like a waxy potato ; I saw it once 

 before at the falls below the Barotse Valley, in the middle of 

 the continent ; it had been brought there by an emigrant, 

 who led out the water for irrigation, and it still maintained 

 its place in the soil. Would this not prove valuable in the 

 soil of India ? I find that it is not cultivated further up 

 the country of the Makonde, but I shall get Ali to secure 

 some for Bombay. 



