_9th October, 1866._--Both barometer and boiling-point showed an altitude of upwards of 4000 feet above the sea. This is the hottest month, but the air is delightfully clear, and delicious. The country is very fine, lying in long slopes, with mountains rising all around, from 2000 to 3000 feet above this upland. They are mostly jagged and rough (not rounded like those near to Mataka's): the long slopes are nearly denuded of trees, and the patches of cultivation are so large and often squarish in form, that but little imagination is requisite to transform the whole into the cultivated fields of England; but no hedgerows exist. The trees are in clumps on the tops of the ridges, or at the villages, or at the places of sepulture. Just now the young leaves are out, but are not yet green. In some lights they look brown, but with transmitted light, or when one is near them, crimson prevails. A yellowish-green is met sometimes in the young leaves, and brown, pink, and orange-red. The soil is rich, but the grass is only excessively rank in spots; in general it is short. A kind of trenching of the ground is resorted to; they hoe deep, and draw it well to themselves: this exposes the other earth to the hoe. The soil is burned too: the grass and weeds are placed in flat heaps, and soil placed over them: the burning is slow, and most of the products of combustion are retained to fatten the field; in this way the people raise large crops. Men and women and children engage in field labour, but at present many of the men are engaged in spinning buaze[29] and cotton. The former is made into a coarse sacking-looking stuff, immensely strong, which seems to be worn by the women alone; the men are clad in uncomfortable goatskins. No wild animals seem to be in the country, and indeed the population is so large they would have very unsettled times of it. At every turning we meet people, or see their villages; all armed with bows and arrows. The bows are unusually long: I measured one made of bamboo, and found that along the bowstring it measured six feet four inches. Many carry large knives of fine iron; and indeed the metal is abundant. Young men and women wear the hair long, a mass of small ringlets comes down and rests on the shoulders, giving them the appearance of the ancient Egyptians. One side is often cultivated, and the mass hangs jauntily on that side; some few have a solid cap of it. Not many women wear the lip-ring: the example of the Waiyau has prevailed so far; but some of the young women have raised lines crossing each other on the arms, which must have cost great pain: they have also small cuts, covering in some cases the whole body. The Maravi or Manganja here may be said to be in their primitive state. We find them very liberal with their food: we give a cloth to the headman of the village where we pass the night, and he gives a goat, or at least cooked fowls and porridge, at night and morning. [Illustration: Tattoo on Women.]