458 DRAINAGE OF LONDA. Chap. XXIII. 



the paramount chief of all the Balonda. The town of Mai is 

 pointed out as to the N.N.W. of Cabango, and thirty-two days or 

 two hundred and twenty-four miles distant, or about lat. S. 5° 45'. 

 The chief town of Luba, another independent chief, is eight days 

 farther in the same direction, or lat. S. 4° 50'. Judging from the 

 aj3pearance of the people who had come for the purposes of 

 trade from Mai, those in the north are in quite as uncivilised a 

 condition as the Balonda. They are clad in a kind of cloth made 

 of the inner bark of a tree. Neither guns nor native traders are 

 admitted into the country, the chief of Luba entertaining a dread 

 of innovation. If a native trader goes thither, he must dress like 

 the common people in Angola, in a loose robe resembling a kilt. 

 The chief trades in shells and beads only. His people kill the 

 elephants by means of spears, poisoned arrows, and traps. All 

 assert that elephants' tusks from that country, are heavier, and 

 of greater length, than any others. 



It is evident, from all the information I could collect both here 

 and elsewhere, that the drainage of Londa falls to the north and 

 then runs westward. The countries of Luba and Mai are evidently 

 lower than this, and yet this is of no great altitude — probably not 

 much more than 3500 feet above the level of the sea. Having 

 here received pretty certain information on a jjoint in which I felt 

 much interest, namely, that the Kasai is not navigable from the 

 coast, owing to the large waterfall near the town of Mai, and that 

 no great kingdom exists in the region beyond, between this and 

 the equator, I would fain have visited Matiamvo. Tins seemed a 

 very desirable step, as it is good policy as well as right, to acknow- 

 ledge the sovereign of a country ; and I was assured, both by 

 Balonda and native traders, that a considerable branch of the 

 Zambesi rises in the country east of his town, and flows away to 

 the south. The whole of this branch, extending clown even to 

 where it turns westward to Masiko, is probably placed too far 

 eastwards on the map. It was put down when I believed 

 Matiamvo and Cazembe to be further east than I have since 

 seen reason to believe them. All, being derived from native 

 testimony, is offered to the reader with diffidence, as needing 

 verification by actual explorers. The people of that part, named 

 Kanyika and Kan)^oka, living on its banks, are represented as 

 both numerous and friendly, but Matiamvo will on no account 



