270 ARMED MAZITU. CHAP. X. 



return, their former pursuers tried to draw them ashore 

 by asserting that they had quantities of ivory for sale. 

 Owing to a succession of gales, it was the fourth day 

 from parting that the boat was found by Dr. Livingstone, 

 who was coming on in search of it with only two of his 

 companions. 



After proceeding a short distance up the path in which 

 they had been lost sight of, they learned that it would 

 take several days to go round the mountains, and rejoin the 

 lake ; and they therefore turned down to the bay, expecting 

 to find the boat, but only saw it disappearing away to 

 the north. They pushed on as briskly as possible after 

 it, but the mountain flank which forms the coast proved 

 excessively tedious and fatiguing ; travelling all day, the 

 distance made, in a straight line, was under five miles. 

 As soon as day dawned, the march was resumed; and, 

 after hearing at the first inhabited rock that their com- 

 panions had passed it the day before, a goat was 

 slaughtered out of the four which they had with them, 

 when suddenly, to the evident consternation of the men, 

 seven Mazitu appeared armed with spears and shields, 

 with their heads dressed fantastically with feathers. To 

 hold a parley, Dr. Livingstone and Moloka, a Makololo 

 man who spoke Zulu, went unarmed to meet them. On 

 Dr. Livingstone approaching them, they ordered him to 

 stop, and sit down in the sun, while they sat in the shade. 

 " No, no ! " was the reply, " if you sit in the shade, so 

 will we." They then rattled their shields with their 

 clubs, a proceeding which usually inspires terror; but 

 Moloka remarked, "It is not the first time we have 

 heard shields rattled." And all sat down together. They 

 asked for a present, to show their chief that they had 

 actually met strangers — something as evidence of having 

 seen men who were not Arabs. And they were re- 

 quested in turn to take these strangers to the boat, or 



