we had just left, we entered the village of Katosa, which is
situated on the bank of a stream among gigantic timber
trees, and found there a large party of Ajawa—Waiau,
they called themselves—all armed with muskets. We sat
down among them, and were soon called to the Chiefs
court, and presented with an ample mess of porridge, buffalo
meat, and beer. Katosa was more frank than any Manganja
Chief we had met, and complimented us by saying that “ we
must be his ‘ Bazimo ’ (good spirits of his ancestors); for when
he lived at Pamalombe, we lighted upon him from above_
men the like of whom he had never seen before, and coming
he knew not whence.” He gaye us one of his own large and
clean huts to sleep in ; and we may take this opportunity of
saying that the impression we received, from our first journey
on the hills among the villages of Chisunse, of the excessive
dirtiness of the Manganja was erroneous. This trait was confined
to the cool highlands. Here crowds of men and
women were observed to perform their ablutions daily in the
stream that ran past their villages; and this we have observed
elsewhere to be a common custom with both Manganja and
Ajawa.
Before we started on the morning of the 1st September,
Katosa sent an enormous calabash of beer, containing at
least three gallons, and then came and wished us to “ stop
a day and eat with him. On explaining to him the reasons
for our haste, he said that he was in the way by which
travellers usually passed, he never stopped them in their
journeys, but would like to look at us for a day. On our
promising to rest a little with him on our return, he gave
us about two pecks of rice, and three guides to conduct us to
a subordinate, female Chief, Nkwinda, living on the borders
of the Lake in front.
The Ajawa, from having taken slaves down to- Quillimane
and Mosambique, knew more of us than Katosa did. Their
muskets were carefully polished, and never out of these
slavers’ hands for a moment, though in the Chiefs presence.
We naturally felt Apprehensive that we should never see
Katosa again. A migratory afflatus seems to have come
over the Ajawa tribes. Wars among themselves, for the
supply of the Coast slave-trade, are said to have first set
them in motion. The usual way in which they have
advanced among the Manganja has been by slave-trading
in a friendly way. Then, professing to wish to live as
subjects, they have been welcomed as guests, and the Manganja,
being great agriculturists, have been able to support
considerable bodies of these visitors for a time. When the
provisions became scarce, the guests began to steal from the
fields; quarrels arose in consequence, and, the Ajawa having
firearms, their hosts got the worst of it, and were expelled
from village after village, and out of their own country.
The Manganja were quite as bad in regard to slave-trading
as the Ajawa, but had less enterprise, and were much more
fond of the home pursuits of spinning, weaving, smelting
iron, and cultivating the soil, than of foreign travel. The
Ajawa had little of a mechanical turn, and not much love
for agriculture, but were very keen traders and travellers.
This party seemed to us to be ini the first or friendly stage
of intercourse with Katosa; and, as we afterwards found, he
was fully alive to the danger.
Our course was shaped towards the JST.W., and we traversed
a large fertile tract of rich soil extensively cultivated, but
dotted with many gigantic thorny acacias which had proved
too large for the little axes of the cultivators. After leaving
Nkwinda, the first village we spent a night at in the
district Ngabi was that of Chembi, and it had a stockade
around it. The Azitu or Mazitu were said to be ravaging
2 K