We know three
places of this name, which fact shows it to be a native word; it
seems to mean a place where the water rushes over rocks. A third
village was called Chipanga (a great work), a name identical with the
Shupanga of the Portuguese. This repetition of names may indicate
that the same people first took these epithets in their traditional
passage from north to south.
At this season of the year the nights are still cold, and the people,
having no crops to occupy their attention, do not stir out till long
after the sun is up. At other times they are off to their fields
before the day dawns, and the first sound one hears is the loud
talking of men and women, in which they usually indulge in the dark
to scare off beasts by the sound of the human voice. When no work is
to be done, the first warning of approaching day is the hemp-smoker's
loud ringing cough.
Having been delayed one morning by some negotiation about guides, who
were used chiefly to introduce us to other villages, we two whites
walked a little way ahead, taking the direction of the stream. The
men having been always able to find out our route by the prints of
our shoes, we went on for a number of miles.
