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.