This party seemed to us to be in the first or friendly stage of intercourse with Katosa; and, as we afterwards found, he was fully alive to the danger.
Our course was shaped towards the N.W., and we traversed a large fertile tract of rich soil extensively cultivated, but dotted with many gigantic thorny acacias which had proved too large for the little axes of the cultivators.

After leaving Nkwinda, the first village we spent a night at in the district Ngabi was that of Chembi, and it had a stockade around it.

The Azitu or Mazitu were said to be ravaging the country to the west of us, and no one was safe except in a stockade.

We have so often, in travelling, heard of war in front, that we paid little attention to the assertion of Chembi, that the whole country to the N.W.was in flight before these Mazitu, under a chief with the rather formidable name of Mowhiriwhiri; we therefore resolved to go on to Chinsamba's, still further in the same direction, and hear what he said about it.
The only instrument of husbandry here is the short-handled hoe; and about Tette the labour of tilling the soil, as represented in the woodcut, is performed entirely by female slaves.

On the West Coast a double-handled hoe is employed.