Muasi was so eager to be off with a party to return the attack on the Mazitu, that, when deputed by the headman to give us a guide, he got the man to turn at the first village, so we had to go on without guides, and made about due north.
_11th December, 1866._--We are now detained in the forest, at a place called Chonde Forest, by set-in rains.

It rains every day, and generally in the afternoon; but the country is not wetted till the "set-in" rains commence; the cracks in the soil then fill up and everything rushes up with astonishing rapidity; the grass is quite crisp and soft.

After the fine-grained schist, we came on granite with large flakes of talc in it.

This forest is of good-sized trees, many of them mopane.

The birds now make much melody and noise--all intent on building.
_12th December, 1866._--Across an undulating forest country north we got a man to show us the way, if a pathless forest can so be called.
We used a game-path as long as it ran north, but left it when it deviated, and rested under a baobab-tree with a marabou's nest--a bundle of sticks on a branch; the young ones uttered a hard chuck, chuck, when the old ones flew over them.