The following morning, having given up all hopes of finding a companion, I collected a dozen raw natives and a Chinyanja dictionary, and on November 10th crossed the Ruo and marched twelve miles to the Liadzi, a parallel stream to the Ruo, and also flowing into the Shiré. Five miles further I forded the Zitembi, another parallel stream of some volume. This I followed up to a village called Gombi (little bank), which is perched on a small cliff at the junction of the Zitembi with a feeder. I had had considerable difficulty in obtaining guides, the natives being very surly, and absolutely refusing any information of the best means of reaching Chiperoni, or of the probability of sport, and at Gombi things reached a climax, the chief telling me that he wanted no white man in his country, that the Portuguese forced them to work for nothing, and demanded a 5 r. hut tax, that my men would obtain no food, etc., etc., _ad nauseam_. However, seeing that I was not to be trifled with, he changed his tone, and brought me flour and fowls, guides to show me game, and a guide to Chiperoni for the morrow. In the afternoon I took a walk round and shot some meat, seeing plenty of fresh rhino, buffalo, eland, sable, and other buck spoor. The country seemed so promising that I decided, if unsuccessful at Chiperoni, to return for a few days. There was an albino woman in the village; all her children, to the number of five, were also albino, and at several other villages in the vicinity I saw specimens, which would argue a strong hereditary tendency. In many of the villages in the higher valleys there were numerous cases of goitre, some very pronounced, and an extraordinary number of lepers and idiots. This was attributable to the isolating influence of mountainous regions, through difficulty of communication, and the consequent tendency to inbreed. The whole of the next day I followed the Zitembi, till, at its junction with a large feeder, about twenty-four miles from Gombi, there is a village called Chirombo. The stream, which is a series of cascades, and lined with bamboo, is exceedingly beautiful, and, by a reconnaissance on the morrow, I ascertained that it rises on the north of Chiperoni. From here Chiperoni has quite an imposing effect. It is a terraced cone deeply seared by water-courses, and rises from the middle of a basin formed by a circle of less prominent peaks, the most important of which is Makambi to the west. Far away to the north-west were visible the heights of Mlanje, while to the east stretched an unending forest-clad plain that reaches to Mozambique. Woods of mahobahoba (the wild loquat) and many flowering trees covered every rise, and the flat interior of the basin; and the glorious golds, reds, russets, and browns of our autumn, which in these climes beautify the landscape in spring, were at their richest, while a carpet of vivid green and purple flowers lay spread beneath the shade.