370 



ACROSS AFRICA. 



[Chap. 



August, 



1875. 



sell provisions for slaves, cloth, and gunpowder, none of which 

 I could give them. 



Throughout the first part of Lovale, the country consisted of 

 a continuation of large open plains, patches of forest and jun- 

 gle, and many neatly built villages. The huts were square, 

 round, and oval, having high roofs, in some instances running 

 into two and three points. 



Our manner of marching was free from any variety. Some- 

 times we were delayed by runaway slaves ; at others by the 

 chiefs desiring Alvez to halt 

 for a day, which he most obe- 

 diently did, although it usual- 

 ly cost him some slaves ; and 

 he even supplied the require- 

 ments of one chief by a draft 

 from his own harem. 



Innumerable old camps 

 along the road bore testimony 

 to the large traffic, principally 

 in slaves, which now exists be- 

 tween Bihe and the centre of 

 the continent. 



Fetiches were numerous in 

 all the villages. They w^ere 

 usually clay figures spotted 

 with red and white, and in- 

 tended to represent leopards 

 and other wild beasts, or rude wooden figures of men and 

 women. 



Some of the plains we crossed are flooded to a depth of two 

 or three feet during the rainy season, when the water extends 

 completely across the water-shed between the Zambesi and the 

 Kassabe. 



Indeed, the systems of the Kongo and Zambesi lock into each 

 other in such a manner that, by some improvement in the ex- 

 isting condition of the rivers, and by cutting a canal of about 

 twenty miles through level country, they might be connected, 

 and internal navigation be established from the West to the 

 East Coast. It would, of course, be necessary to arrange for 



^^-M 



HEAD-DKE8S AND HATOIIET. 



