848 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



we met had at each encampment set up a little roof over a bit of the path 

 some distance in advance, where their tail passed the night by itself. I do not 

 know whether our men had a proper tail ; there was one with us, seemingly 

 used as a fly-flap, but it was stolen at the Donde's village on the Rovuma. 

 The circle of the encampment is generally completed all round, so as to shut 

 out thieves and keep in runaways. Where bamboos and long grass are plen- 

 tiful, a very neat and useful camp may be built very quickly. 



" The night after crossing the Luatize, we soon got good fires and a 

 plentiful supper, and woke the next day' on a good specimen of a May morn- 

 ing, bright and fresh and sparkling. This beginning of the rains is the spring 

 of the tropical year; the trees are coming into fresh leaf, flowers are every- 

 where showing themselves. Among the brightest at this time were the gladi- 

 olus, scarlet, white, lilac, puce, lemon, and orange. No one in Yao land need 

 fear to want flowers about Christmas. It was past mid-day when we came to 

 the Yao encampment, and soon after met our men returning. We were then 

 close to Mataka's villages, and slept in one of them on the night of the 8th of 

 December, having made twenty-seven full days of travelling, the remaining 

 eleven being days and half-days of rest and provision seeking. 



"We were not destined to make a dignified entrance into Mataka's cho- 

 sen residence, Mwembe, for a drizzling rain came on, and as we had to cross 

 several spurs of the main ridge, with steep descents and ascents, ending by 

 the ascent into the town itself, the rain made the clay path so slippery that 

 we slid and staggered on as we best could in sad disorder. However, we 

 blazed away a good deal of powder, and the town turned out in force to look 

 at us. It was a new thing to me to see a genuine town crowd in Africa. 

 Livingstone reckoned about a thousand houses in Mwembe, and it has not 

 since diminished. I could not count the houses myself, but I think there were 

 probably quite as -many as Livingstone saw. The people have made a curi- 

 ous compromise with their old custom of moving away from the place where 

 any one dies. They build a new house close to the old one, and ridge up the 

 clay and rubbish of the old walls into a small plantation of Indian or Kafir 

 corn. Every spare plot is planted, so that after the rains the town must look 

 like a sea of green, with house roofs floating upon it. 



"A steep road led us through the thickest part of the town to where a 

 very large high roof, surmounted by a ridge board, with a head at one end, 

 a tail at the other, and something like a man astride near the head, marked 

 Mataka's own dwelling. There is a large yard surrounded by trees in front 

 of it, and in the broad space under the eaves, a sort of earthen throne, three 

 steps high, on one side of the door for the chief himself, and a lower bench 

 on the other for his visitors. There I was placed, and the yard soon filled 

 with townsfolk. Mataka came out directly , and sat down on his throne ; 

 he understood my Swahili, but would not talk it, preferring to use Chuma, 



