302 MANIOC-GARDENS. Chap. XVII. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Leave Shinte — Manioc-gardens — Mode of preparing the poisonous kind — 

 Its general nse — Presents of food — Punctiliousness of the Balonda — 

 Their idols and superstition — Dress of the Balonda — Villages heyond 

 Lonaje — Cazemhe — Our guides and the Makololo — Night rains — In- 

 quiries for English cotton goods — Intemese's fiction — Visit from an old 

 man — Theft — Industry of our guide — Loss of pontoon — Plains covered 

 with water — Affection of the Balonda for their mothers — A night on an 

 island — The grass on the plains — Source of the rivers — Loan of the roofs 

 of huts — A halt — Fertility of the country through which the Lokalueje 

 flows — Omnivorous fish — Natives' modes of catching them — The village 

 of a half-brother of Katema, his speech and present — Our guide's per- 

 versity — Mozenkwa's pleasant home and family — Clear water of the 

 flooded rivers — A messenger from Katema — Quendende's village, his 

 kindness — Crop of wool — Meet people from the town of Matiamvo — Fire- 

 side talk — Matiamvo's character and conduct — Presentation at Katema's 

 court, his present, good sense, and appearance — Interview on the following 

 day — Cattle — A feast and a Makololo dance — Arrest of a fugitive — 

 Dignified old courtier — Katema's lax government — Cold wind from the 

 north — Canaries and other singing hirds — Spiders, their nests and webs — 

 Lake Dilolo — Tradition — Sagacity of ants. 



26th. — Leaving Shinte, with eight of his men to aid in carry- 

 ing our luggage, we passed, in a northerly direction, down the 

 lovely valley on which the town stands, then went a little to 

 the west through pretty open forest, and slept at a village of 

 Balonda. In the morning we had a fine range of green hills 

 called Saloisho on our right, and were informed that they were 

 rather thickly inhabited by the people of Shinte, who worked in 

 iron, the ore of which abounds in these hills. 



The country through which we passed, possessed the same 

 general character of flatness and forest that we noticed before. 

 The soil is dark, with a tinge of red ; in some places it might 

 be called red; and appeared very fertile. Every valley con- 

 tained villages of twenty or thirty huts, with gardens of manioc, 

 which here is looked upon as the staff of life. Very little labour 

 is required for its cultivation. The earth is drawn up into 

 oblong beds, about three feet broad and one in height, and in 



