THE FIRST WHITE MAN. 223 



heard of. The observations of Dr. Livingstone pointed more 

 toward the conclusion that this remarkable irrigation is the re- 

 sult of the gradual elevation of the surface in a region formerly 

 occupied by an extensive lake, whose waters probably forced 

 their way along the cracks and deeper fissures made by the up- 

 heaval of the earth. The theory is sustained also by the char- 

 acter of the soil and the presence of certain shells identical with 

 those to be seen in lakes in other sections of the continent. The 

 rivers have each a double bed, the simple sharply cut furrow 

 in the calcareous tufa which probably lined the channel of the 

 ancient lake, and another bed of inundation. When these beds 

 of inundation are filled they look like a great system of lakes. 



Dr. Livingstone found no indications here of the country's 

 having ever been visited by a white man previously to his own 

 coming, although it has been asserted that the Portuguese had 

 possessed a chain of trading stations across the continent before 

 that time ; though there were some evidences that the natives 

 had been in contact with white men. An old head man at the 

 village of Nanulanga remembered that his father had twice 

 visited the homes of the white men when he was a boy, and that 

 many of'the people had gone who never returned. 



These people are decidedly inferior to the Makololo in all of 

 those characteristics which are pleasing in our eyes. The char- 

 acters of their chiefs in earlier times had gone far toward form- 

 ing their minds to cruelty and treachery. They had been 

 accustomed to a premium on those acts which involve the perfec- 

 tion of these arts of barbarism. Their personal appearance, at 

 best more degraded and negro-like, is rendered more repulsive 

 by their singular custom of knocking out the upper front teeth 

 of males and females, a custom which has a very insufficient 

 explanation in their desire " to look like oxen," but which is so 

 prevalent that one who has his teeth is considered very ugly. 



They dwell in a fertile country and enjoy nearly the same 

 varieties of fruits as the inhabitants of Angola, and are abun- 

 dantly supplied. Their country also abounds in the wild ani- 

 mals which were so seldom seen by Dr. Livingstone in his 

 northwestern journey after leaving the borders of the Makololo. 



While the Batoka were claimed as the subjects of Sekeletu, 

 a large part of the tribe had begun to disregard his authority, 



