_4th June, 1866._--Left Ngomano. I was obliged to tell the Nassick
boys that they must either work or return, it was absurd to have them
eating up our goods, and not even carrying their own things, and I
would submit to it no more: five of them carry bales, and two the
luggage of the rest. Abraham and Richard are behind. I gave them bales
to carry, and promised them ten rupees per month, to begin on this
date. Abraham has worked hard all along, and his pay may be due from
7th April, the day we started from Kindany.

_5th June, 1866._--We slept at a village called Lamba, on the banks of
the Rovuma, near a brawling torrent of 150 yards, or 200 perhaps, with
many islands and rocks in it. The country is covered with open forest,
with patches of cultivation everywhere, but all dried up at present
and withered, partly from drought and partly from the cold of winter.
We passed a village with good ripe sorghum cut down, and the heads or
ears all laid neatly in a row, this is to get it dried in the sun, and
not shaken out by the wind, by waving to and fro; besides it is also
more easily watched from being plundered by birds. The sorghum
occasionally does not yield seed, and is then the _Sorghum
saccharatum_, for the stalk contains abundance of sugar, and is much
relished by the natives. Now that so much has failed to yield seed,
being indeed just in flower, the stalks are chewed as if sugar-cane,
and the people are fat thereon; but the hungry time is in store when
these stalles are all done. They make the best provision in their
power against famine by planting beans and maize in moist spots. The
common native pumpkin forms a bastard sort in the same way, but that
is considered very inferior.

_6th June, 1866._--Great hills of granite are occasionally in sight
towards the north, but the trees, though scraggy, close in the view.