610 HILLS AND VILLAGES. 



themselves and their gardens from their enemies ; there is plenty 

 of garden-ground outside the hills ; here they are obliged to make 

 pitfalls to protect the grain against the hippopotami. As these 

 animals had not been disturbed by guns, they were remarkably 

 tame, and took no notice of our passing. We again saw numbers 

 of young ones, not much larger than terrier dogs, sitting on the 

 necks of their dams, the little saucy-looking heads cocking up be- 

 tween the old one's ears ; as they become a little older they sit 

 on the withers. Needing meat, we shot a full-grown cow, and 

 found, as we had often done before, the flesh to be very much like 

 pork. The height of this animal was 4 feet 10 inches, and from 

 the point of the nose to the root of the tail 10 feet 6. They seem 

 quarrelsome, for both males and females are found covered with 

 scars, and young males are often killed by the elder ones : we met 

 an instance of this near the falls. 



We came to a great many little villages among the hills, as if 

 the inhabitants had reason to hide themselves from the observa- 

 tion of their enemies. While detained cutting up the hippopot- 

 amus, I ascended a hill called Mabue asula (stones smell badly), 

 and, though not the highest in sight, it was certainly not 100 feet 

 lower than the most elevated. The boiling-point of water show- 

 ed it to be about 900 feet above the river, which was of the 

 level of Linyanti. These hills seemed to my men of prodigious 

 altitude, for they had been accustomed to ant-hills only. The 

 mention of mountains that pierced the clouds made them' draw in 

 their breath and hold their hands to their mouths. And when I 

 told them that their previous description of Taba cheu had led 

 me to expect something of the sort, I found that the idea of a 

 cloud-capped mountain had never entered into their heads. The 

 mountains certainly look high, from having abrupt sides ; but 

 I had recognized the fact by the point of ebullition of water, 

 that they are of a considerably lower altitude than the top of the 

 ridge we had left. They constitute, in fact, a sort of low fringe on 

 the outside of the eastern ridge, exactly as the (apparently) high 

 mountains of Angola (Golungo Alto) form an outer low fringe to 

 the western ridge. I was much struck by the similarity of confor- 

 mation and nature of the rocks on both sides of the continent ; but 

 there is a difference in the structure of the subtending ridges, as 

 may be understood by the annexed ideal geological section. 



