1867.] THE BALUNGU. COMES TO CHIBUE'S. 201 



singing in the ears, and can scarcely hear the loud tick 

 of the chronometers. The appetite is good, but we have 

 no proper food, chiefly maere meal or beans, or mapemba 

 or ground-nuts, rarely a fowl. 



The country is full of hopo-hedges, but the animals are 

 harassed, and we never see them. 



11th March. — Detained by a set-in rain. Marks on masses 

 of dolomite elicited the information that a party of Londa 

 smiths came once to this smelting ground and erected their 

 works here. We saw an old iron furnace, and masses of 

 haematite, which seems to have been the ore universally 

 used. 



12th March. — Eain held us back for some time, but 

 we soon reached Chibue, a stockaded village. Like them 

 all, it is situated by a stream, with a dense clump of trees 

 on the waterside of some species of mangrove. They attain 

 large size, have soft wood, and succulent leaves ; the roots 

 intertwine in the mud, and one has to watch that he does 

 not step where no roots exist, otherwise he sinks up to the 

 thigh. In a village the people feel that we are on their 

 property, and crowd upon us inconveniently ; but outside, 

 where we usually erect our sheds, no such feeling exists, we 

 are each on a level, and they don't take liberties. 



The Balungu are marked by three or four little knobs on 

 the temples, and the lobes of the ears are distended by a 

 piece of wood, which is ornamented with beads ; bands of 

 beads go across the forehead and hold up the hair. 



Chibue's village is at the source of the Lokwena, which 

 goes N. and N.E. ; a long range of low hills is on our N.E., 

 which are the Mambwe, or part of them. The Chambeze 

 rises in them, but further south. Here the Lokwena, round 

 whose source we came on starting this morning to avoid wet 

 feet, and all others north and west of this, go to the Lofu or 

 Lobu, and into Liemba Lake. Those from the hills on our 

 right go east into the Loanzu and so into the Lake. 



