Before leaving Kazé I notified my intention of visiting Ukéréwé, supposing I could do so in three or four days, and explained to my men my wishes on this point. Hearing this, they told both Mahaya and Mansur, in direct terms, that I was going, and so needlessly set them to work finessing to show how much they were in earnest in their consideration of me. However, they have both been very warm in dissuading me from visiting Ukéréwé, apparently quite in a parental way, for each seems to think himself in a measure my guardian. Mahaya thinks it his duty to caution those who visit him from running into danger, which a journey to Ukéréwé, he considers, would be. Mansur, on the other hand, says, as I have come from his Sultan Majid, he also is bound to render me any assistance in his power; but strongly advises my giving up the notion of going across the water. I could get boats from Sukuma, he said, but there would be great delay in the business, as I should have first to send over and ask permission from Machunda to land, and then the collecting men and boats would occupy a long time. As regards the collection of boats taking a long time, these arguments are very fair, as I know from experience; but the only danger would consist in the circumstance of the two sultans being at enmity with each other, as in this land any one coming direct from an enemy's country is suspected and treated as an enemy. This difficulty I should have avoided by going straight to Sukuma (where the boats, I am inclined to think, usually do start from, though all concur in stating that this is their point of departure), and there obtaining boats direct. However, I told them that I should have gone if I had found boats ready at once to take me across; but now I saw the probability of so much delay, that I could not afford to waste time in trying to obtain boats, which, had I succeeded in getting, I should have employed my time not in going to Ukéréwé, but to the more elevated and friendly island of Mzita, this being a more suitable observatory than the former. These negroes' manoeuvres are quite incomprehensible. If Mahaya had desired to fleece me--and one can hardly give a despotic negro credit for anything short of that--he surely would have tried to detain me under false hopes, and have thus necessitated my spending cloths in his village; while, on the contrary, he lost all chance of gaining anything by giving advice which induced me to leave him at once, never to return again to see him.