MARCH TO UKUNI. 
79 
to his breast. 'You ought not to roast a brisket/ 
He brought a tongue, hump, and double brisket, 
smelling, all of which had been boiled yesterday, 
and now he wanted to roast the brisket already 
done. 
"27th. — Bombay and I march with 38 porters to 
make a start of it to Nunda, in Ukuni, and to see 
Sultan Ukulima. Distance was eight miles through a 
very pretty country, with rocks jutting out fantasti- 
cally, and lying now and then one on another; culti- 
vation all the way. Sighted the village when within 
a mile of it ; quantities of spring water coming down 
from a rocky height to our right. After we had en- 
tered the first milk-bush enclosure, there were several 
cleanly-swept windings. Village nearly empty. A 
heavy old man sitting on a stool with half-a-dozen men 
round him, induced me to say ' Yambo; ; he returned it, 
and I went looking for a house. Came to the palace, 
a very high round hut, smelling strongly of goats and 
cattle. I asked permission to live here, and the old 
man, who proved to be the sultan, said, 'Doogoh 
yango' — 'Come along, my brother/ Sweeping out 
the verandah of goat-dung, my bed was soon made. 
The sultana, a fat, fair, gentle old lady, welcomed me 
with both hands as if I had been her son. She was 
so surprised at the bedding as she sat upon it, and 
everything she saw, saying ' Eeh, eeh ! } and nodding 
her head : indeed, all were surprised. Bombay got 
some pombe; the drunken old sultan himself carried 
a basket-cup of it. He drank first (through a straw), 
and then I had some, and very good it was. Then he 
drank again, and I drank again, laughing heartily. 
People in hundreds came. I went to sleep, though 
