238 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. IX. 



very fine scents; others do it when cut. Euphorbia is 

 abundant. We slept by a torrent which had been filled with 

 muddy water by late rains. It thunders every afternoon, 

 and rains somewhere as regularly as it thunders, but these 

 are but partial rains ; they do not cool the earth ; nor fill 

 the cracks made in the dry season. 



27th October. — Off early in a fine drizzling rain, which 

 continued for two hours, and came on to a plain about 

 three miles broad, full of large game. These plains are 

 swamps at times, and they are flanked by ridges of denu- 

 dation some 200 or 300 feet above them, and covered with 

 trees. 



The ridges are generally hardened sandstone, marked 

 with madrepores, and masses of brown hseniatite. It is 

 very hot, and we become very tired. There is no system 

 in the Arab marches. The first day was five hours, this 

 3^ hours ; had it been reversed — short marches during the 

 first days and longer afterwards — the muscles would have 

 become inured to the exertion. A long line of heights on 

 our south points to the valley of Nsaina. 



2§th October. — Five hours brought us to the Choma Eiver 

 and the villages of Chifupa, but, as already mentioned, the 

 chief and people had fled, and no persuasion could prevail 

 on them to come and sell us food. We showed a few who 

 ventured to come among us what we were willing to give 

 for flour, but they said, " Yes, we will call the women and 

 they will sell." None came. 



Kested all day on the banks of the Choma, which is 

 a muddy stream coming from the north and going to 

 the south-west to join the Chisera. It has worn itself 

 a deep bed in the mud of its banks, and is twenty yards 

 wide and in some spots waist deep, at other parts it is 

 unfordable, it contains plenty of fish, and hippopotami 

 and crocodiles abound. I bought a few ground-nuts at an 

 exorbitant price, the men evidently not seeing that it 



