Chap. XVIII. UNCULTIVATED VALLEYS. 337 



When I stood up, it was most gratifying to see them all 

 struggling towards me. Some had leaped off the bridge, and 

 allowed their cloaks to float down the stream. Part of my 

 goods, abandoned in the hurry, were brought up from the 

 bottom after I was safe. Great was the pleasure expressed when 

 they found that I could swim like themselves, without the aid 

 of a tail, and I did, and do feel grateful to these poor heathens 

 for the promptitude with which they dashed in to save, as they 

 thought, my life. I found my clothes cumbersome in the water ; 

 they could swini quicker from being naked. They swim like 

 dogs, not frog-fashion, as we do. 



In the evening we crossed the small rivulet Lozeze, and came 

 to some villages of the Kasabi, from whom we got some manioc 

 in exchange for beads. They tried to frighten us by telling of 

 the deep rivers we should have to cross in our way. I was 

 drying my clothes by turning myself round and round before the 

 fire. My men laughed at the idea of being frightened by rivers. 

 "We can all swim: who carried the white man across the river 

 but himself ? " I felt proud of their praise. 



Saturday, 4.th March. — Came to the outskirts of the territory 

 of the Chiboque. We crossed the Konde and Kaluze rivulets. 

 The former is a deep small stream with a bridge, the latter in- 

 significant ; the valleys in which these rivulets run are beautifully 

 fertile. My companions are continually lamenting over the un- 

 cultivated vales, in such words as these, — " What a fine country 

 for cattle ! My heart is sore to see such fruitful valleys for corn 

 lying waste ! " At the time these words were put down, I had 

 come to the belief that the reason why the inhabitants of this 

 fine country possess no herds of cattle, was owing to the despotic 

 sway of their chiefs, and that the common people would not be 

 allowed to keep any domestic animals, even supposing they 

 could acquire them ; but on musing on the subject since, I have 

 been led to the conjecture that the rich fertile country of Londa, 

 must formerly have been infested by the tsetse, but that, as the 

 people killed off the game on which, in the absence of man, the 

 tsetse must subsist, the insect was starved out of the country. 

 It is now found only where wild animals abound, and the Ba- 

 londa, by the possession of guns, having cleared most of the 

 country of all the large game, we may have happened to come 



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