164 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. VII. 



afterwards, and was counselled by him to leave us as we 

 should not pay him. This hovering near us after we parted 

 makes me suspect Kavimba of taking the goats, but I am 

 not certain. The loss affected me more than I could have 

 imagined. A little indigestible porridge, of scarcely any 

 taste, is now my fare, and it makes me dream of better. 



27th December. — Our guide asked for his cloth to wear on 

 the way, as it was wet and raining, and his bark cloth was a 

 miserable covering. I consented, and he bolted on the first 

 opportunity; the forest being so dense he was soon out of 

 reach of pursuit : he had been advised to this by Kavimba, 

 and nothing else need have been expected. We then fol- 

 lowed the track of a travelling party of Babisa, but the grass 

 springs up over the paths, and it was soon lost: the rain 

 had fallen early in these parts, and the grass was all in seed. 

 In the afternoon we came to the hills in the north where 

 Nyamazi rises, and went up the bed of a rivulet for some 

 time, and then ascended out of the valley. At the bottom 

 of the ascent and in the rivulet the shingle stratum was 

 sometimes fifty feet thick, then as we ascended we met mica 

 schist tilted on edge, then grey gneiss, and last an igneous 

 trap among quartz rocks, with a great deal of bright mica 

 and talc in them. On resting near the top of the first 

 ascent two honey hunters came to us. They were using the 

 honey-guide as an aid, the bird came to us as they arrived, 

 waited quietly during the half-hour they smoked and 

 chatted, and then went on with them.* 



The tsetse flies, Avhich were very numerous at the bottom, 

 came up the ascent with us, but as we increased our alti- 

 tude by another thousand feet they gradually dropped off 

 and left us: only one remained in the evening, and he 



* This extraordinary bird flies from tree to tree in front of the hunter, 

 chirrupping loudly, and will not be content till he arrives at the spot 

 where the bees'-nest is ; it then waits quietly till the honey is taken, and 

 feeds on the broken morsels of comb winch fall to its share. 



