the Victoria Falls I observed tufaceous rocks:  these must contain the bones, for were they carried away from the great tufa Lake bottom of Sesheke, down the Victoria Falls, they would all be ground into fine silt.  The bones in the river and in the delta were all associated with pieces of coarse pottery, exactly the same as the natives make and use at the present day:  with it we found fragments of a fine grain, only occasionally seen among Africans, and closely resembling ancient cinerary urns:  none were better baked than is customary in the country now.  The most ancient relics are deeply worn granite, mica-schist, and sandstone millstones; the balls used for chipping and roughing them, of about the shape and size of an orange, are found lying near them.  No stone weapons or tools ever met my eyes, though I was anxious to find them, and looked carefully over every ancient village we came to for many years.  There is no flint to make celts, but quartz and rocks having a slaty cleavage are abundant.  It is only for the finer work that they use iron tongs, hammers, and anvils and with these they turn out work which makes English blacksmiths declare Africans never did.  They are very careful of their tools:  indeed, the very opposites to the flint implement men, who seem sometimes to have made celts just for the pleasure of throwing them away:  even the Romans did not seem to know the value of their money.

The ancient Africans seem to have been at least as early as the Asiatics in the art of taming elephants.  The Egyptian monuments show them bringing tame elephants and lions into Egypt; and very ancient sculptures show the real African species, which the artist must have seen.  They refused to sell elephants, which cost them months of hard labour to catch and tame, to a Greek commander of Egyptian troops for a few brass pots:  they were quite right.  Two or three tons of fine fat butcher-meat were far better than the price, seeing their wives could make any number of cooking pots for nothing.

15th July, 1872.—­Reported to-day that twenty wounded men have been brought into M’futu from the field of fighting.  About 2000 are said to be engaged on the Arab side, and the side of Mirambo would seem to be strong, but the assailants have the disadvantage of firing against a stockade, and are unprotected, except by ant-hills, bushes, and ditches in the field.  I saw the first kites to-day:  one had spots of white feathers on the body below, as if it were a young one—­probably come from the north.

17th July, 1872.—­Went over to Sultan bin Ali yesterday.  Very kind, as usual; he gave me guavas and a melon—­called “matanga.”  It is reported that one of Mirambo’s chief men, Sorura, set sharp sticks in concealed holes, which acted like Bruce’s “craw-taes” at Bannockburn, and wounded several, probably the twenty reported.  This has induced the Arabs to send for a cannon they have, with which to batter Mirambo at a distance.  The gun is borne past us this morning:  a brass 7-pounder, dated 1679.  Carried by the Portuguese Commander-in-Chief to China 1679, or 193 years ago—­and now to beat Mirambo, by Arabs who have very little interest in the war.