A great many of the Banyai are of a light coffee-and-milk color, and, indeed, this color is considered handsome throughout the whole country, a fair complexion being as much a test of beauty with them as with us.  As they draw out their hair into small cords a foot in length, and entwine the inner bark of a certain tree round each separate cord, and dye this substance of a reddish color, many of them put me in mind of the ancient Egyptians.  The great mass of dressed hair which they possess reaches to the shoulders, but when they intend to travel they draw it up to a bunch, and tie it on the top of the head.  They are cleanly in their habits.

As we did not come near human habitations, and could only take short stages on account of the illness of one of my men, I had an opportunity of observing the expedients my party resorted to in order to supply their wants.  Large white edible mushrooms are found on the ant-hills, and are very good.  The mokuri, a tuber which abounds in the Mopane country, they discovered by percussing the ground with stones; and another tuber, about the size of a turnip, called “bonga”, is found in the same situations.  It does not determine to the joints like the mokuri, and in winter has a sensible amount of salt in it.  A fruit called “ndongo” by the Makololo, “dongolo” by the Bambiri, resembles in appearance a small plum, which becomes black when ripe, and is good food, as the seeds are small.  Many trees are known by tradition, and one receives curious bits of information in asking about different fruits that are met with.  A tree named “shekabakadzi” is superior to all others for making fire by friction.  As its name implies, women may even readily make fire by it when benighted.

The country here is covered over with well-rounded shingle and gravel of granite, gneiss with much talc in it, mica schist, and other rocks which we saw ‘in situ’ between the Kafue and Loangwa.  There are great mounds of soft red sand slightly coherent, which crumble in the hand with ease.  The gravel and the sand drain away the water so effectually that the trees are exposed to the heat during a portion of the year without any moisture; hence they are not large, like those on the Zambesi, and are often scrubby.  The rivers are all of the sandy kind, and we pass over large patches between this and Tete in which, in the dry season, no water is to be found.  Close on our south, the hills of Lokole rise to a considerable height, and beyond them flows the Mazoe with its golden sands.  The great numbers of pot-holes on the sides of sandstone ridges, when viewed in connection with the large banks of rolled shingle and washed sand which are met with on this side of the eastern ridge, may indicate that the sea in former times rolled its waves along its flanks.  Many of the hills between the Kafue and Loangwa have their sides of the form seen in mud banks left by the tide.  The pot-holes appear most abundant on low gray sandstone ridges