I had tasted no animal food except what turtle-doves and guinea-fowls could be shot since we passed Matawatawa,--true, a fowl was given by Mtende.

The last march was remarkable for the scarcity of birds, so eight days were spent on porridge and rice without relish.
I gave Mataka a trinket, to be kept in remembrance of his having sent back the Nyassa people: he replied that he would always act in a similar manner.

As it was a spontaneous act, it was all the more valuable.
The sepoys have become quite intolerable, and if I cannot get rid of them we shall all starve before we accomplish what we wish.

They dawdle behind picking up wild fruits, and over our last march (which we accomplished on the morning of the eighth day) they took from fourteen to twenty-two days.

Retaining their brutal feelings to the last they killed the donkey which I lent to the havildar to carry his things, by striking it on the head when in boggy places into which they had senselessly driven it loaded; then the havildar came on (his men pretending they could go no further from weakness), and killed the young buffalo and eat it when they thought they could hatch up a plausible story.