An Arab trader, Mohamad Bogharib, who arrived seven days before us with an immense number of slaves, presented a meal of vermicelli, oil, and honey, also cassava meal cooked, so as to resemble a sweet meat (I had not tasted honey or sugar since we left Lake Nyassa, in September 1866): they had coffee too. Neither goats, sheep, nor cattle thrive here, so the people are confined to fowls and fish. Cassava is very extensively cultivated, indeed, so generally is this plant grown, that it is impossible to know which is town and which is country: every hut has a plantation around it, in which is grown cassava, Holcus sorghum, maize, beans, nuts. Mohamad gives the same account of the River Luapula and Lake Bemba that Jumbe did, but he adds, that the Chambeze, where we crossed it, _is_ the Luapula before it enters Bemba or Bangweolo: on coming out of that Lake it turns round and comes away to the north, as Luapula, and, without touching the Mofwe, goes into Moero; then, emerging thence at the north-west end it becomes Lualaba, goes into Rua, forms a lake there, and afterwards goes into another lake beyond Tanganyika. The Lakelet Mofwe fills during the rains and spreads westward, much beyond its banks. Elephants wandering in its mud flats when covered are annually killed in numbers: if it were connected with the Lake Moero the flood would run off. Many of Casembe's people appear with the ears cropped and hands lopped off: the present chief has been often guilty of this barbarity. One man has just come to us without ears or hands: he tries to excite our pity making a chirruping noise, by striking his cheeks with the stumps of his hands. A dwarf also, one Zofu, with backbone broken, comes about us: he talks with an air of authority, and is present at all public occurrences: the people seem to bear with him. He is a stranger from a tribe in the north, and works in his garden very briskly: his height is 3 feet 9 inches. FOOTNOTES: [56] Chefu amongst the Manganja. Any animal possessing strength, has the terminal "fu" or "vu;" thus Njobvu, an elephant; M'vu, the hippopotamus.--ED. [57] The natives are quick to detect a peculiarity in a man, and give him a name accordingly: the conquerors of a country try to forestall them by selecting one for themselves. Susi states that when Tipo Tipo stood over the spoil taken from Nsama, he gathered it closer together and said, "Now I am Tipo Tipo," that is, "the gatherer together of wealth." Kumba Kumba, of whom we shall hear much, took his name from the number of captives he gathered in his train under similar circumstances; it might be translated, "the collector of people."--ED. [58] It is on the West Coast alone that idols are really worshipped in Africa.--ED. CHAPTER X.