I have been careful throughout to spell the native names in accordance with the rules laid down by the Royal Geographical Society. The sound of the Bushman clicks which occurs so often in the names of places and in the names of tribes derived from the names of places, but most frequently of all in the names of rivers, is slurred over by the present tribes, and represented by a combination of letters. As I know of no rule for the spelling of these sounds, I have represented them by an inverted comma and the consonant nearest in sound. In maps of Africa north of the Zambesi these clicks are generally spelt in this way, although the comma has often dropped out, as in words like ‘Nyanza,’ ‘Mpwapwa,’ ‘Mvumi;’ but south of that river cartographers have been less accurate, and have often used various vowels instead of the comma. I have used such mis-spellings of the native names only when they have been long established and passed into constant use: as ‘Umtali’ and ‘Inhambane.’ A point of interest in the remote history of the country and of the ruins which we examined—for the old people doubtless entered the country by this coast—is the growth of the land at the mouth of the Pungwe River and around Sofala. From about Sarmento down to Beira one passes over a low alluvial country which has been slowly encroaching on the sea for ages. I am sorry that in the rush to the coast I did not have time to collect data to enable me to form any idea of the quantity of mud deposited from the waters of the Pungwe in a given time, but its waters hold in suspension a great quantity of fine clay derived from the decomposition of the granite in its basin, and this is deposited where the river enters the sea. The distance from Sarmento to Beira as the crow flies is sixty-five miles, so that at some period the road to the interior must have been shortened by this amount, and even in early historical times some part of the journey across the low fever belt would have been saved. The site of ancient seaports will now be far inland, so it need not surprise us that remains of these ports have not yet been found.