236 NALIELE. 



east of this. He had given them cattle, ivory, and children, 

 and had received in return a large blunderbuss to be mounted 

 as a cannon. When the slight circumstance of my having 

 covered the body of the chief with my own deranged the whole 

 conspiracy, the Mambari, in their stockade, were placed in very 

 awkward circumstances. It was proposed to attack them and 

 drive them out of the country at once ; but, dreading a com- 

 mencement of hostilities, I urged the difficulties of that course, 

 and showed that a stockade defended by perhaps forty muskets 

 would be a very serious affair. " Hunger is strong enough for 

 that," said an under-chief; "a very great fellow is he." They 

 thought of attacking them by starvation. As the chief sufferers 

 in case of such an attack would have been the poor slaves chained 

 in gangs, I interceded for them, and the result of an intercession 

 of which they were ignorant was that they were allowed to depart 

 in peace. 



Naliele, the capital of the Barotse, is built on a mound which 

 was constructed artificially by Santuru, and was his store-house 

 for grain. His own capital stood about five hundred yards to the 

 south of that, in what is now the bed of the river. All that re- 

 mains of the largest mound in the valley are a few cubic yards of 

 earth, to erect which cost the whole of the people of Santuru the 

 labor of many years. The same thing has happened to another 

 ancient site of a town, Linangelo, also on the left bank. It would 

 seem, therefore, that the river in this part of the valley must be 

 wearing eastward. No great rise of the river is required to sub- 

 merge the whole valley ; a rise of ten feet above the present low- 

 water mark would reach the highest point it ever attains, as seen 

 in the markings of the bank on which stood Santuru's ancient 

 capital, and two or three feet more would deluge all the villages. 

 This never happens, though the water sometimes comes so near 

 the foundations of the huts that the people can not move outside 

 the walls of reeds which encircle their villages. When the river 

 is compressed among the high rocky banks near Gonye, it rises 

 sixty feet. 



The influence of the partial obstruction it meets with there is 

 seen in the more winding course of the river north of 16° ; and 

 when the swell gets past Katima-molelo, it spreads out on the 

 lands on both banks toward Sesheke. 



