About the middle of August, after cutting wood at Shamoara, we again steamed up the Shire, with the intention of becoming better acquainted with the people, and making another and longer journey on foot to the north of Lake Shirwa, in search of Lake Nyassa, of which we had already received some information, under the name Nyinyesi (the stars).  The Shire is much narrower than the Zambesi, but deeper, and more easily navigated.  It drains a low and exceedingly fertile valley of from fifteen to twenty miles in breadth.  Ranges of wooded hills bound this valley on both sides.  For the first twenty miles the hills on the left bank are close to the river; then comes Morambala, a detached mountain 500 yards from the river’s brink, which rises, with steep sides on the west, to 4000 feet in height, and is about seven miles in length.  It is wooded up to the very top, and very beautiful.  The southern end, seen from a distance, has a fine gradual slope, and looks as if it might be of easy ascent; but the side which faces the Shire is steep and rocky, especially in the upper half.  A small village peeps out about halfway up the mountain; it has a pure and bracing atmosphere; and is perched above mosquito range.  The people on the summit have a very different climate and vegetation from those of the plains; but they have to spend a great portion of their existence amidst white fleecy clouds, which, in the rainy season, rest daily on the top of their favourite mountain.  We were kindly treated by these mountaineers on our first ascent; before our second they were nearly all swept away by Mariano.  Dr. Kirk found upwards of thirty species of ferns on this and other mountains, and even good-sized tree-ferns; though scarcely a single kind is to be met with on the plains.  Lemon and orange trees grew wild, and pineapples had been planted by the people.  Many large hornbills, hawks, monkeys, antelopes, and rhinoceroses found a home and food among the great trees round its base.  A hot fountain boils up on the plain near the north end.  It bubbles out of the earth, clear as crystal, at two points, or eyes, a few yards apart from each other, and sends off a fine flowing stream of hot water.  The temperature was found to be 174 degrees Fahr., and it boiled an egg in about the usual time.  Our guide threw in a small branch to show us how speedily the Madse-awira (boiling water) could kill the leaves.  Unlucky lizards and insects did not seem to understand the nature of a hot-spring, as many of their remains were lying at the bottom.  A large beetle had alighted on the water, and been killed before it had time to fold its wings.  An incrustation, smelling of sulphur, has been deposited by the water on the stones.  About a hundred feet from the eye of the fountain the mud is as hot as can be borne by the body.  In taking a bath there, it makes the skin perfectly clean, and none of the mud adheres:  it is strange that the Portuguese do not resort to it for the numerous cutaneous diseases with which they are so often afflicted.