46 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. II. 



pay may be due from 7th April, the day we started from 

 Kindany. 



5ih June. — We slept at a village called Lamba, on the 

 banks of the Rovuma, near a brawling torrent of 150 yards, 

 or 200 perhaps, with many islands and rocks in it. The 

 ■country is covered with open forest, with patches of cultiva- 

 tion everywhere, but all dried up at present and withered, 

 partly from drought and partly from the cold of winter. 

 We passed a village with good ripe sorghum cut down, 

 and the heads or ears all laid neatly in a row, this is to 

 .get it dried in the sun, and not shaken out by the wind, 

 by waving to and fro ; besides it is also more easily 

 watched from being plundered by birds. The sorghum 

 occasionally does not yield seed, and is then the Sorghum 

 saccharatum, for the stalk contains abundance of sugar, and 

 is much relished by the natives. Now that so much has 

 failed to yield seed, being indeed just in flower, the stalks 

 .are chewed as if sugar-cane, and the people are fat thereon ; 

 but the hungry time is in store when these stalks are 

 all done. They make the best provision in their power 

 -against famine by planting beans and maize in moist spots. 

 The common native pumpkin forms a bastard sort in the 

 same way, but that is considered very inferior. 



6th June. — Great hills of granite are occasionally in 

 sight towards the north, but the trees, though scraggy, 

 -close in the view. We left a village, called Mekosi, and 

 soon came to a slaving party by a sand stream. They said 

 that they had bought two slaves, but they had run away 

 from them, and asked us to remain with them; more 

 •civil than inviting. We came on to Makochera, the prin- 

 cipal headman in this quarter, and found him a merry 

 laughing mortal, without any good looks to recommend his 

 genial smile, — low forehead, covered with deep wrinkles; 

 flat nose, somewhat of the Assyrian shape; a big mouth 

 and lean body. He complained of the Machinga (a Waiyau 



