1866.] 



REMAINS OF BETTER TIMES. 



70 



they all declared, " We are ready to do anything for yon, 

 but we will do nothing for these Hindis." I sent back a 

 sepoy, giving him provisions ; he sat down in the first 

 village, ate all the food, and returned. 



An immense tract of country lies uninhabited. To the 

 north-east of Moembe we have at least fifty miles of as fine 

 land as can be seen anywhere, still bearing all the marks of 

 having once supported a prodigious iron-smelting and grain- 

 growing population. The clay pipes which are put on the 

 nozzles of their bellows and inserted into the furnace are 

 met with everywhere — often vitrified. Then the ridges on 

 which they planted maize, beans, cassava, and sorghum, 

 and which they find necessary to drain off the too abundant 

 moisture of the rains, still remain unlevelled to attest the 

 industry of the former inhabitants ; the soil being clayey, 

 resists for a long time the influence of the weather. These 

 ridges are very regular, for in crossing the old fields, as the 

 path often compels us to do, one foot treads regularly on 

 the ridge, and the other in the hollow, for a considerable 

 distance. Pieces of broken pots, with their rims ornamented 

 with very good imitations of basket-work, attest that the 

 lady potters of old followed the example given them by 

 their still more ancient mothers, — their designs are rude, 

 but better than we can make them without referring to the 

 original. 



Imitation of basket-work in Pottery. 



No want of water has here acted to drive the people 

 away, as has been the case further south. It is a perpetual 

 succession of ridge and valley, with a running stream or 



