The People Who Live In This District Have Reclaimed
Their Gardens From The Forest, And The Soil Is Extremely Fertile.
The Nake Flows Northerly, And Then To The East.
It is 50 or 60 yards wide,
but during most of the year is dry, affording water only by digging
in the sand.
We found in its bed masses of volcanic rock,
identical with those I subsequently recognized as such at Aden.
13TH. The head man of these parts is named Nyampungo.
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 Londa. Nyampungo behaved
in quite a gentlemanly manner, presented me with some rice,
and told my people to go among 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 praying to God 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 Luia,
which unite in the Luenya." 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.
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