220 EGYPTIAN GEESE. CHAP. VIII. 



and parted good friends. Moemba, having heard that we 

 had called the people of Sinamane together to tell them 

 about our Saviour's mission to man, and to pray with 

 them, associated the idea of Sunday with the meeting, 

 and, before anything of the sort was proposed, came and 

 asked that he and his people might be " sundayed " as well 

 as his neighbours ; and be given a little seed wheat, and 

 fruit-tree seeds; with which request of course we very 

 willingly complied. The idea of praying direct to the 

 Supreme Being, though not quite new to all, seems to 

 strike their minds so forcibly that it will not be forgotten. 

 Sinamane said that he prayed to God, Morungo, and made 

 drink-offerings to him. Though he had heard of us, he 

 had never seen white men before. 



Beautiful crowned cranes, named from their note " ma- 

 wang," were seen daily, and were beginning to pair. 

 Large flocks of spur-winged geese, or machikwe, were 

 common. This goose is said to lay her eggs in March. 

 We saw also pairs of Egyptian geese, as well as a few of 

 the knob-nosed, or, as they are called in India, combed 

 geese. When the Egyptian geese, as at the present time, 

 have young, the goslings keep so steadily in the wake of 

 their mother, that they look as if they were a part of her 

 tail ; and both parents, when on land, simulate lameness 

 quite as well as our plovers, to draw off pursuers. The 

 ostrich also adopts the lapwing fashion, but no quadrupeds 

 do : they show fight to defend their young instead. In 

 some places the steep banks were dotted with the holes 

 which lead into the nests of bee-eaters. These birds came 

 out in hundreds as we passed. When the red-breasted 

 species settle on the trees, they give them the appearance 

 of being covered with red foliage. 



On the morning of the 12th October we passed through 

 a wild, hilly country, with fine wooded scenery on both 

 sides, but thinly inhabited. The largest trees were usually 



