534 PRODUCTIONS OF THE SOIL. Chap. XXVI. 



November 26th. — As the oxen could only move at night, in con- 

 sequence of a fear that the buffaloes in tins quarter might have 

 introduced the tsetse, I usually performed the march by day on 

 foot, while some of the men brought on the oxen by night. On 

 coming to the villages under Marimba, an old man, we crossed the 

 Unguesi, a rivulet which, like the Lekone, runs backward. It 

 falls into the Leeambye a little above the commencement of the 

 rapids. The stratified gneiss, winch is the underlying rock of 

 much of tins part of the country, dips towards the centre of the 

 continent, but the strata are often so much elevated as to appear 

 nearly on their edges. Kocks of augitic trap are found in various 

 positions on it ; the general strike is north and south, but when 

 the gneiss was first seen, near to the basalt of the falls, it was 

 easterly and westerly, and the dip towards the north, as if the 

 eruptive force of the basalt had placed it in that position. 



We passed the remains of a very large town, which, from the 

 only evidence of antiquity afforded by ruins in this country, must 

 have been inhabited for a long period ; the millstones of gneiss, 

 trap, and quartz, were worn down, two and a half inches per- 

 pendicularly. The ivory gravestones soon rot away. Those of 

 Moyara's father, who must have died not more than a dozen years 

 ago, were crumbling into powder ; and Ave found this to be generally 

 the case all over the Batoka country. The region around is pretty 

 well covered with forest ; but there is abundance of open pasturage, 

 and as we are ascending in altitude we find the grass to be short, 

 and altogether unlike the tangled herbage of the Barotse valley. 



It is remarkable that we now meet with the same trees we saw 

 in descending towards the west coast. A kind of sterculia, which 

 is the most common tree at Loanda, and the baobab, flourish here ; 

 and the tree called moshuka, which we found near Tala Mungongo, 

 was now yielding its fruit, winch resembles small apples. The 

 people brought it to us in large quantities : it tastes like a pear, 

 but has a harsh rind, and four large seeds within. We found pro- 

 digious quantities of this fruit as we went along. The tree attains 

 the height of 15 or 20 feet, and has leaves, hard and glossy, as large 

 as one's hand. The tree itself is never found on the lowlands, but 

 is mentioned with approbation at the end of the work of Bowdich. 

 My men almost lived upon the fruit for many days. 



The rains had fallen only partially : in many parts the soil was 





