CHAPTER VI.

Illness—­The Honey-guide—­Abundance of game—­The Baenda pezi—­The Batoka.

We left the river here, and proceeded up the valley which leads to the Mburuma or Mohango pass.  The nights were cold, and on the 30th of June the thermometer was as low as 39 degrees at sunrise.  We passed through a village of twenty large huts, which Sequasha had attacked on his return from the murder of the chief, Mpangwe.  He caught the women and children for slaves, and carried off all the food, except a huge basket of bran, which the natives are wont to save against a time of famine.  His slaves had broken all the water-pots and the millstones for grinding meal.

The buaze-trees and bamboos are now seen on the hills; but the jujube or zisyphus, which has evidently been introduced from India, extends no further up the river.  We had been eating this fruit, which, having somewhat the taste of apples, the Portuguese call Macaas, all the way from Tette; and here they were larger than usual, though immediately beyond they ceased to be found.  No mango-tree either is to be met with beyond this point, because the Portuguese traders never established themselves anywhere beyond Zumbo.  Tsetse flies are more numerous and troublesome than we have ever before found them.  They accompany us on the march, often buzzing round our heads like a swarm of bees.  They are very cunning, and when intending to bite, alight so gently that their presence is not perceived till they thrust in their lance-like proboscis.  The bite is acute, but the pain is over in a moment; it is followed by a little of the disagreeable itching of the mosquito’s bite.  This fly invariably kills all domestic animals except goats and donkeys; man and the wild animals escape.  We ourselves were severely bitten on this pass, and so were our donkeys, but neither suffered from any after effects.

Water is scarce in the Mburuma pass, except during the rainy season.  We however halted beside some fine springs in the bed of the now dry rivulet, Podebode, which is continued down to the end of the pass, and yields water at intervals in pools.  Here we remained a couple of days in consequence of the severe illness of Dr. Kirk.  He had several times been attacked by fever; and observed that when we were on the cool heights he was comfortable, but when we happened to descend from a high to a lower altitude, he felt chilly, though the temperature in the latter case was 25 degrees higher than it was above; he had been trying different medicines of reputed efficacy with a view to ascertain whether other combinations might not be superior to the preparation we generally used; in halting by this water he suddenly became blind, and unable to stand from faintness.  The men, with great alacrity, prepared a grassy bed, on which we laid our companion, with the sad forebodings which only those who have tended the sick in a wild country can realize.