356 DESERTED BY GUIDES. Chap. XIX. 



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 pontoon, 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 condemna- 

 tion of the meanness, and when I asked if they could descend to 

 be equally mean, I was answered 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 tins 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 

 somewhat 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-coloured 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 headman 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 travelling 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 



