Mukate's people here left us, and I walked up to the village of the fugitives with one attendant only. Their suspicions were so thoroughly aroused that they would do nothing. The headman (Pima) was said to be absent; they could not lend us a hut, but desired us to go on to Mponda's. We put up a shed for ourselves, and next morning, though we pressed them for a guide, no one would come. From Pima's village we had a fine view of Pamalombe and the range of hills on its western edge, the range which flanks the lower part of Nyassa,--on part of which Mukate lives,--the gap of low land south of it behind which Shirwa Lake lies, and Chikala and Zomba nearly due south from us. People say hippopotami come from Lake Shirwa into Lake Nyassa. There is a great deal of vegetation in Pamalombe, gigantic rushes, duckweed, and great quantities of aquatic plants on the bottom; one slimy translucent plant is washed ashore in abundance. Fish become very fat on these plants; one called "kadiakola" I eat much of; it has a good mass of flesh on it. It is probable that the people of Lake Tanganyika and Nyassa, and those on the Rivers Shire and Zambesi, are all of one stock, for the dialects vary very little.[21] I took observations on this point. An Arab slave-party, hearing of us, decamped. _19th September, 1866._--When we had proceeded a mile this morning we came to 300 or 400 people making salt on a plain impregnated with it. They lixiviate the soil and boil the water, which has filtered through a bunch of grass in a hole in the bottom of a pot, till all is evaporated and a mass of salt left. We held along the plain till we came to Mponda's, a large village, with a stream running past. The plain at the village is very fertile, and has many large trees on it. The cattle of Mponda are like fatted Madagascar beasts, and the hump seems as if it would weigh 100 lbs.[22] The size of body is so enormous that their legs, as remarked by our men, seemed very small. Mponda is a blustering sort of person, but immensely interested in everything European. He says that he would like to go with me. "Would not care though he were away ten years." I say that he may die in the journey.--"He will die here as well as there, but he will see all the wonderful doings of our country." He knew me, having come to the boat, to take a look _incognito_ when we were here formerly.