The route south that Holmes and Mr Barton followed had last been taken by Henry O'Neill in 1881, some thirty years previously. An adventurous British Consul, O'Neill was the first white man to penetrate beyond the coastal zone and although he lived on in the memory of some of the older natives, many of them, particularly the women, had never seen a white man before. Consequently Holmes and Barton were often followed by a shrieking mob for mile after mile. But this was the least of their difficulties. After a month of fruitless wanderings they stopped for a few days at Nacavalla where Holmes found time to write a letter to Bob explaining the problems:

The object of our expedition has been to find an old Arab Sultan, named Moravi, who, a quarter of a century ago was the ruler of the Makua over all the coastal district south of Mozambique. [The indigenous peoples of Mozambique are of Bantu origin, but by the tenth century the Arabs had established themselves on the coast.] This man was attacked by the Portuguese, but instead of blotting him out they were themselves defeated. This however, was an unstable state of affairs and presently Moravi had to fly inland. He surrounded himself with Makua chiefs on all sides and these have kept strangers from him all these years.