886.] 
Stay in Garenganze, 
193 
is made — yet I can enjoy it right heartily. My eyes give me 
little trouble now. 
November i^fh. — I had just begun to find joy in Dick's com- 
panionship, when it seems — for the time, at least — to be snatched 
firom me by his renewed illness and suffering in mind ; yet I can 
say from my heart, that God's perfect way, though hard to the 
flesh, is not hard to love; for with Him alone is companionship, 
and all else is desolation and darkness. Those words, "Who 
calleth you" (i Thess. ii. 12, R.V.), have been ringing sweetly in 
my ears these last few days ; the present, " calleth ; " not the past, 
"called." Knowing this, we approach Him with confidence. Then 
follows "unto His own kingdom and glory." Surely blessed is 
the people whose God is Jehovah ; a calling God, a comifig Christ, 
now at this moment ours. 
The chief sent for me early this morning, asking me to visit 
his brother, some distance off, who is ill, and whose wife had gone 
out of her mind. I trudged off with the kalama (king's page) 
sent to conduct me, returning late in the afternoon, throbbing all 
over with the excessive heat of the sun. This heat, however, I 
must confess, suits me; I have grown stronger during these last 
six weeks. 
In going about from place to place, I better understand the 
size of this Mukurru, or inhabited plain. It takes a good day's 
journey to traverse it, being between eight to ten miles in width. 
The ground is chiefly covered with fields, in the midst of which 
the river Unkeya (or Ongeya) runs, but the clusters of huts are 
many, and scattered all over. Here and there are centres, in 
which the king has his own houses, where, to the extent of half a 
mile or so each way, the houses of the people are built together. 
MSIDl's RULE. 
In the midst of all these people the amount of quietness 
and peace that reigns is remarkable. The fear of Msidi is great 
He is sharp and severe in his government, though I see or hear 
of nothing in the way of torture or cruelty inflicted by his 
orders as a means of punishment; yet executions are common, 
but death is inflicted at once, and in the most expeditious manner. 
All the cases of which I have heard particulars have been those 
of actual crime, and not of witchcraft or any other mere super- 
o 
