The district called the Shiré Highlands proper is enclosed between the Shiré, the Ruo, and Lake Chilwa. It was so named by Livingstone, and others besides him have noticed the similarity to the Scottish mountains, in these rugged peaks and crags of quartzite and grey granite, especially in the dry season, when the brown grass is very nearly the colour of the dead heather and bracken. Sochi, near Blantyre, is, in general outline, not unlike Ben Cruachan. The highest of these mountains are Mlanje and Zomba—they are ranges rather than mountains; or, more precisely still, Mlanje is an isolated mass, a plateau with peaks rising from it like buttresses—the highest point 9680 feet. The plateau has a height of 6000 feet, and a temperate climate—cool enough for hoar-frost at night. From these mountains the land sinks in a series of irregular undulations, to the Shiré, covered sometimes with bush, sometimes with the thick, coarse grass so feelingly described by all travellers, which is really more like canes. After it is burned, as it is every year, it is a greater nuisance than ever, for the larger stalks (about as thick as one’s finger) never get quite consumed, and neither stand up nor lie flat, but lie across each other at every conceivable angle—too high to step on and too low to push one’s way under. Other mountains are Chiperone, Chiradzulo and Tyolo, Nyambadwe and Ndirande—the two latter close to Blantyre. It is difficult to make out their relation to each other. At a bird’s-eye view—as from the top of Nyambadwe, or some point on Ndirande—they look like a confused sea of peaks and ridges; but they are more or less continuous to Zomba, and are separated from Mlanje by the Chilwa plain and the valley of the Tuchila, which runs into the Ruo. West of the Shiré we have the Kirk Mountains, running north and south, with some striking peaks—Dzonze, a collection of rounded humps; Mvai, a rocky pyramid, with a three-cleft peak; Lipepete; and, far to the north, Chirobwe, with a sharp rock pointing from its summit like a finger.