Tim RAIN-CHARMER. 567 



13Z&. — The head-man of these parts is named Nyam- 

 pungo. I sent the last fragment of cloth we had, with 

 a request that we should be furnished with a guide to 

 the next chief. After a long conference with his council, 

 the cloth was returned with a promise of compliance, 

 and a request for some beads only. This man is supposed 

 to possess the charm for rain, and other tribes send to him 

 to beg it. This shows that what we inferred before was 

 correct, that less rain falls in this country than in I^onda. 

 Nyampungo behaved in quite a gentlemanly manner, 

 presented me with some rice, and told my people to go 

 amongst all the villages and beg for themselves. An old 

 man, father-in-law of the chief, told me that he had seen 

 books before, but never knew what they meant. They 

 pray to departed chiefs and relatives, but the idea of pray- 

 ing to Goo: seemed new, and they heard it with reverence. 

 As this was an intelligent old man, I asked him about the 

 silver, but he was as ignorant of it as the rest, and said, 

 " We never dug silver, but we have washed for gold in the 

 sands of the rivers Mazoe and 1/uia, which unite in the 

 I/uenya." I think that this is quite conclusive on the 

 question of no silver having been dug by the natives of 

 this district. Nyampungo is afflicted with a kind of 

 disease called Sesenda, which I imagine to be a species 

 of leprosy common in this quarter, though they are a 

 cleanly people. They never had cattle. The chief's 

 father had always lived in their present position, and, 

 when I asked him why he did not possess these useful 

 animals, he said, " Who would give us the medicine to 

 enable us to keep them ? " I found out the reason after- 

 wards in the prevalence of tsetse, but of this he was 

 ignorant, having supposed that he could not keep cattle 

 because he had no medicine. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



14th. — WE left Nyampungo this morning. The path, 

 wound up the Molinge, another sand-river which flows 

 into the Nake. When we got clear of the tangled jungle 

 which covers the banks of these rivulets, we entered the 

 Mopane country, where we could walk with comfort. 

 When we had gone on a few hours, my men espied an 



