So far as we can get at the notions of the Bantu about creation, they do not seem to have thought that this world ever had a beginning. All the stories one has met with assume it as already existing, and explain how this or that feature—mountains, rivers, lakes, animals, men—was introduced into it. The Yaos tell that Mtanga pinched up the surface of the earth into mountains, Chitowi—who had failed in performing the operation himself—having called him in for the purpose. He then dug channels for rivers, and brought down rain to fill them. The Yaos, being mountaineers, assumed that a plain would be unfit for human habitation: Mtanga, on first viewing their country, remarked, ‘This country is bad because it is without a hill.’ There are also legends of the introduction of the sun, moon, and stars, and of the origin of clouds, wind, and rain; but all these presuppose the existence of people on the earth. Mankind is held to have originated at Kapirimtiya, a hill—or as some say, an island in a lake, far to the west of Nyasa. Here it is believed that there is a rock covered with marks like the footprints of men and animals, and that, when men were first created, the island was a piece of soft mud, and Mulungu sent them across it, so as to leave their footmarks there, before they were dispersed over the world. One native account says that ‘they came from heaven and fell down below upon the earth’; another, that they came out of a hole in the rock, which was afterwards closed by ‘the people of Mulungu,’ and is now ‘in a desert place towards the north.’ In the Bemba country, the natives speak of two such places; and one of them was seen in 1902 by a European, who describes it in a letter to _Life and Work_ as ‘a conglomerate rock showing what the natives call footprints of a man, a child, a zebra or horse, and a dog.’ The Bemba people say that these footprints were made by Mulungu (or, as they call him, Luchereng’anga) ‘and the people and animals he brought to occupy the country.’ Offerings of beads, calico, and beer are placed on this rock. The writer thought the marks certainly looked like footprints, but were merely hollows where the rain had washed out the softer parts of the rock. The old head-man of the place, naturally enough, would not hear of this explanation, and maintained that the marks had once been much plainer, but were now partly washed away by the rains. This account agrees well enough with the vague indications given by the Blantyre people as to the direction of Kapirimtiya. It seems to show that the Yaos and Bemba had some common centre, though the latter also say (which is confirmed by other testimony) that they came from the west in comparatively recent times.