384 DESERTED BY GUIDES. 



that this stream is so low during most of the year as to be easily 

 fordable, it probably derives its name from the use made of the 

 bark canoes when it is in flood. We now felt the loss of our pon- 

 toon, for the people to whom the canoe belonged made us pay 

 once when we began to cross, then a second time when half of us 

 were over, and a third time when all were over but my principal 

 man Pitsane and myself. Loyanke took off his cloth and paid 

 my passage with it. The Makololo always ferried their visitors 

 over rivers without pay, and now began to remark that they must 

 in future fleece the Mambari as these Chiboque had done to us ; 

 they had all been loud in condemnation of the meanness, and when 

 I asked if they could descend to be equally mean, I was answer- 

 ed that they would only do it in revenge. They like to have a 

 plausible excuse for meanness. 



Next morning our guides went only about a mile, and then told 

 us they would return home. I expected this when paying them 

 beforehand, in accordance with the entreaties of the Makololo, 

 who are rather ignorant of the world. Very energetic remon- 

 strances were addressed to the guides, but they slipped off one by 

 one in the thick forest through which we were passing, and I 

 was glad to hear my companions coming to the conclusion that, 

 as we were now in parts visited by traders, we did not require the 

 guides, whose chief use had been to prevent misapprehension of 

 our objects in the minds of the villagers. The country was some- 

 what more undulating now than it had been, and several fine 

 small streams flowed in deep woody dells. The trees are very 

 tall and straight, and the forests gloomy and damp ; the ground in 

 these solitudes is quite covered with yellow and brown mosses, and 

 light-colored lichens clothe all the trees. The soil is extremely 

 fertile, being generally a black loam covered with a thick crop of 

 tall grasses. We passed several villages too. The head man of 

 a large one scolded us well for passing, when he intended to give 

 us food. Where slave-traders have been in the habit of coming, 

 they present food, then demand three or four times its value as a 

 custom. We were now rather glad to get past villages without 

 intercourse with the inhabitants. 



We were traveling W.N.W., and all the rivulets we here 

 crossed had a northerly course, and were reported to fall into the 

 Kasai or Loke; most of them had the peculiar boggy banks of 



