I could not prevail on Makochera to give me a specimen of poetry; he was afraid, neither he nor his forefathers had ever seen an Englishman. He thought that God was not good because He killed so many people. Dr. Roscher must have travelled as an Arab if he came this way, for he was not known.[10] _9th June, 1866._--We now left and marched through the same sort of forest, gradually ascending in altitude as we went west, then we came to huge masses of granite, or syenite, with flakes peeling off. They are covered with a plant with grassy-looking leaves and rough stalk which strips into portions similar to what are put round candles as ornaments. It makes these hills look light grey, with patches of black rock at the more perpendicular parts; the same at about ten miles off look dark blue. The ground is often hard and stony, but all covered over with grass and plants: looking down at it, the grass is in tufts, and like that on the Kalahari desert. Trees show uplands. One tree of which bark cloth is made, pterocarpus, is abundant. Timber-trees appear here and there, but for the most part the growth is stunted, and few are higher than thirty feet. We spent the night by a hill of the usual rounded form, called Njengo. The Rovuma comes close by, but leaves us again to wind among similar great masses. Lat. 11 deg. 20' 05" S. _10th June, 1866._--A very heavy march through the same kind of country, no human habitation appearing; we passed a dead body--recently, it was said, starved to death. The large tract between Makochera's and our next station at Ngozo hill is without any perennial stream; water is found often by digging in the sand streams which we several times crossed; sometimes it was a trickling rill, but I suspect that at other seasons all is dry, and people are made dependent on the Rovuma alone. The first evidence of our being near the pleasant haunts of man was a nice little woman drawing water at a well. I had become separated from the rest: on giving me water she knelt down, and, as country manners require, held it up to me with _both_ hands. I had been misled by one of the carriers, who got confused, though the rounded mass of Ngozo was plainly visible from the heights we crossed east of it. An Arab party bolted on hearing of our approach: they don't trust the English, and this conduct increases our importance among the natives. Lat. 11 deg. 18' 10" S. _11th June, 1866._--Our carriers refuse to go further, because they say that they fear being captured here on their return. _12th June, 1866._--I paid off the carriers, and wait for a set from this. A respectable man, called Makoloya, or Impande, visited me, and wished to ask some questions as to where I was going, and how long I should be away. He had heard from a man who came from Ibo, or Wibo, about the Bible, a large book which was consulted. [Illustration: Tattoo of Matambwe.]