We have to ask who are the principal chiefs in the direction which we wish to take, and decide accordingly. Zomba was pointed out as a chief on a range of hills on our west: beyond him lies Undi m'senga. I had to take this route, as my people have a very vivid idea of the danger of going northwards towards the Mazitu. We made more southing than we wished. One day beyond Zomba and W.S.W. is the part called Chindando, where the Portuguese formerly went for gold. They don't seem to have felt it worth while to come here, as neither ivory nor gold could be obtained if they did. The country is too full of people to allow any wild animals elbow-room: even the smaller animals are hunted down by means of nets and dogs.
We rested at Pachoma; the headman offering a goat and beer, but I declined, and went on to Molomba. Here Kauma's carriers turned because a woman had died that morning as we left the village. They asserted that had she died before we started not a man would have left: this shows a reverence for death, for the woman was no relative of any of them. The headman of Molomba was very poor but very liberal, cooking for us and presenting a goat: another headman from a neighbouring village, a laughing, good-natured old man, named Chikala, brought beer and a fowl in the morning. I asked him to go on with us to Mironga, it being important, as above-mentioned, to have the like of his kind in our company, and he consented. We saw Mount Ngala in the distance, like a large sugar-loaf shot up in the air: in our former route to Kasungu we passed north of it.
_16th October, 1866._--Crossed the rivulet Chikuyo going N. for the Lake, and Mironga being but one-and-a-half hour off, we went on to Chipanga: this is the proper name of what on the Zambesi is corrupted into Shupanga. The headman, a miserable hemp-consuming[31] leper, fled from us. We were offered a miserable hut, which we refused, Chikala meanwhile went through the whole village seeking a better, which we ultimately found: it was not in this chief to be generous, though Chikala did what he could in trying to indoctrinate him: when I gave him a present he immediately proposed to _sell_ a goat! We get on pretty well however.