A FRUITFUL COUNTRY. 105 



towards the south the excess of the waters which saturate their soil ; 

 cand a certain quantity of these waters, encountering the lake on 

 their way, flow into it. It is in March and April that the inunda- 

 tion begins. The waters, on descending, find the rivers dried up, 

 and the lake itself exceedingly shallow. The rivers in this part of 

 Africa flow in channels capable of containing a far greater volume of 

 water than they generally hold. When looking at them, you might 

 believe yourself in some desolated Oriental garden where all the irri- 

 gating canols still exist, but where the dams permit only a mere 

 thread of water to take its course. 



" The water," adds Livingstone,* " is less absorbed by the earth 

 than lost between banks too wide apart, where the air and the sun 

 evaporate them. I am persuaded that there is not in the whole of 

 this country a river which loses itself amid the sands." 



The country situated to the north is exceedingly level for some 

 hundreds of miles, and abundantly provided with lakes and rivers, 

 which the slightest undulations of the soil divert into innumerable 

 windings. The plain is alternately covered with sombre thickets, 

 lofty forests, and dense herbage. On the banks of some rivers this 

 herbage assumes gigantic proportions, and by its tenacity opposes an 

 effectual barrier to animals. In many places the wide green pastures 

 are enlivened by large herds of cattle, which the natives breed. The 

 land of the Barotses possess immense prairies of this description, the 

 home of numerous herds of elephants. But this richness of the soil 

 is counterbalanced by the insalubrity of the climate. These vast, 

 periodically flooded surfaces become, when the waters recede, the 

 nurseries of deadly fevers, and other formidable maladies, whose 

 destructive influence extends to a great distance. 



The magnificent river Zambesi, known in its upper course by the 

 local appellation of Leambye both words having the same significa- 

 tion in the native tongue, " the River" fertilizes and brightens these 

 productive regions. Flowing at first from north to south, it makes a 

 sharp bend westward, to march with stately step from south to north, 



* Livingstone, " Missionary Travels and Researches." 



