There The Land Is Flat, And Only A Short
Land Journey Would Be Necessary.
Seldom does the current here exceed
a knot an hour, while that of the Lower Shire is from two to two-and-
a-half knots.
Our land party of Makololo accompanied us along the
right bank, and passed thousands of Manganja fugitives living in
temporary huts on that side, who had recently been driven from their
villages on the opposite hills by the Ajawa.
The soil was dry and hard, and covered with mopane-trees; but some of
the Manganja were busy hoeing the ground and planting the little corn
they had brought with them. The effects of hunger were already
visible on those whose food had been seized or burned by the Ajawa
and Portuguese slave-traders. The spokesman or prime minister of one
of the chiefs, named Kalonjere, was a humpbacked dwarf, a fluent
speaker, who tried hard to make us go over and drive off the Ajawa;
but he could not deny that by selling people Kalonjere had invited
these slave-hunters to the country. This is the second humpbacked
dwarf we have found occupying the like important post, the other was
the prime minister of a Batonga chief on the Zambesi.
As we sailed along, we disturbed many white-breasted cormorants; we
had seen the same species fishing between the cataracts. Here, with
many other wild-fowls, they find subsistence on the smooth water by
night, and sit sleepily on trees and in the reeds by day.
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