RELIGIOUS FEELING. 239 



the British and Portuguese Mixed Commission at Cape Town, 

 was evidently anxious to show me all the kindness in his power. 

 These persons I feel assured were the first individuals of Portu- 

 guese blood who ever saw the Zambesi in the centre of the 

 country, and they had reached it two years after our discovery in 

 1851. 



The town or mound of Santuru's mother was shown to me; 

 this was the first symptom of an altered state of feeling with 

 regard to the female sex that I had observed. There are few or 

 no cases of women being elevated to the headships of towns fur- 

 ther south. The Barotse also showed some relics of their chief, 

 which evinced a greater amount of the religious feeling than I 

 had ever known displayed among Bechuanas. His more recent 

 capital, Lilonda, built, too, on an artificial mound, is covered with 

 different kinds of trees, transplanted when young by himself. 

 They form a grove on the end of the mound, in which are to be 

 seen various instruments of iron just in the state he left them. 

 One looks like the guard of a basket-hilted sword ; another has 

 an upright stem of the metal, on which are placed branches 

 worked at the ends into miniature axes, hoes, and spears ; on 

 these he was accustomed to present offerings, according as he 

 desired favors to be conferred in undertaking hewing, agricul- 

 ture, or fighting. The people still living there, in charge of 

 these articles, were supported by presents from the chief; and 

 the Makololo sometimes follow the example. This was the near- 

 est approach to a priesthood I met. When I asked them to part 

 with one of these relics, they replied, "Oh no, he refuses." "Who 

 refuses?" " Santuru," was their reply, showing their belief in a 

 future state of existence. After explaining to them, as I always 

 did when opportunity offered, the nature of true worship, and pray- 

 ing with them in the simple form which needs no offering from the 

 worshiper except that of the heart, and planting some fruit-tree 

 seeds in the grove, we departed. 



Another incident, which occurred at the confluence of the Leeba 

 and Leeambye, may be mentioned here, as showing a more vivid 

 perception of the existence of spiritual beings, and greater prone- 

 ness to worship than among the Bechuanas. Having taken lunar 

 observations in the morning, I was waiting for a meridian altitude 

 of the sun for the latitude ; my chief boatman was sitting by, in 



