306 NIGHT-KAINS. Chap. XVII. 



his country has been termed Londa, Lunda, or Lui, by the 

 Portuguese. 



It was always difficult to get our guides to move away from a 

 place. With the authority of the chief, they felt as comfortable 

 as king's messengers could, and were not disposed to forego the 

 pleasure of living at free quarters. My Makololo friends were 

 but ill drilled as yet ; and since they had never left their own 

 country before, except for purposes of plunder, they did not take 

 readily to the peaceful system we now meant to follow. They 

 either spoke too imperiously to strangers, or, when reproved for 

 that, were disposed to follow the dictation of every one we met. 

 When Intemese, our guide, refused to stir towards the Leeba on 

 the 31st of January, they would make no effort to induce him 

 to go ; but, having ordered them to get ready, Intemese saw 

 the preparations, and soon followed the example. It took us 

 about four hours to cross the Leeba, which is considerably 

 smaller here than where we left it, — indeed, only about a hundred 

 yards wide. It has the same dark mossy hue. The villagers 

 lent us canoes to effect our passage ; and, having gone to a vil- 

 lage about two miles beyond the river, I had the satisfaction of 

 getting observations for both longitude and latitude — for the 

 former, the distance between Saturn and the Moon, and for the 

 latter a meridian altitude of Canopus. Long. 22° 57' E. ; 

 lat. 12° 6' 6" S. 



These were the only opportunities I had of ascertaining my 

 whereabouts in this part of Londa. Again and again did I take 

 out the instruments, and, just as all was right, the stars would be 

 suddenly obscured by clouds. I had never observed so great an 

 amount of cloudiness in any part of the south country ; and as 

 for the rains, I believe that years at Kolobeng would not have 

 made my little tent so rotten and thin as one month had done in 

 Londa. I never observed in the south, the heavy night and 

 early morning rains we had in this country. They often con- 

 tinued all night, then became heavier about an hour before 

 dawn. Or if fan during the night, as day drew nigh, an ex- 

 tremely heavy, still, pouring rain set in without warning. Five 

 out of every six days we had this pouring rain, at or near break 

 of day, for months together ; and it soon beat my tent so thin, 

 that a mist fell through on my face and made everything damp. 



