584 NO CHIEF NO I.AW. 



praised the appearance of the Banyai, and they certainly 

 are a fine race. 



We got on better with Nyakoba than we expected. He 

 has been so rmich affected by the sesenda that he is quite 

 decrepit, and requires to be fed. I at once showed his 

 messenger that we had nothing whatever to give. Nya- 

 koba was offended with him for not believing me, and he 

 immediately sent a basket of maize and another of corn, 

 saying that he believed my statement, and would send 

 men with me to Tete who would not lead me to any 

 other village. 



The birds here sing very sweetly, and I thought I heard 

 the canary, as in Londa. We had a heavy shower of rain, 

 and I observed that the thermometer sank 14 in one 

 hour afterwards. From the beginning of February we 

 experienced a sensible diniinution of temperature. In 

 January the lowest was 75 , and that at sunrise ; the 

 average at the same hour (sunrise) being 79 ° ; at 3 pm., 

 90 ; and at sunset, 82 °. In February it fell as low as 

 70 in the course of the night, and the average height was 

 88°. Only once did it rise to 94 , and a thunderstorm 

 followed this ; yet the sensation of heat was greater now 

 than it had been at much higher temperatures on more 

 elevated lands. 



We passed several villages by going roundabout ways 

 through the forest, We saw the remains of a lion that 

 had been killed by a buffalo, and the horns of a putokwane 

 (black antelope), the finest I had ever seen, which had 

 met its death by a lion. The drums beating all night in 

 one village near which we slept showed that?some person 

 in it had finished his course. On the occasioiTof the death 

 of a chief, a trader is liable to be robbed, for the people 

 consider themselves not amenable to law until a new one 

 is elected. We continued a very winding course, in order 

 to avoid the chief Katoldsa, who is said to levy large sums 

 upon those who fall into his hands. One of our guides was 

 a fine tall young man, the very image of Ben-Habib the 

 Arab. They were carrying dried buffalo's meat to the 

 market at Tete as a private speculation. 



A great many of the Banyai are of a light coffee-and- 

 milk colour, and indeed this colour is considered handsome 

 throughout the whole country, — a fair complexion being 

 as much a test of beauty with them as with us. As they 

 draw out their hair into small cords a foot in length, and 



