306 OBJECT IN VISITING THE INTERIOR. 



in the wagons, the usual mode of travelling south of the 

 twentieth degree of latitude being by ox-wagon. For four 

 days, upon several occasions, we had not a drop of water for the 

 oxen : but beyond twentieth south latitude, going to the north, 

 we travelled to Loanda, one thousand fiv^ hundred miles, with- 

 out carrying water for a single day. The country in the southern 

 part of Africa is a kind of oblong basin, stretching north and 

 south, bounded on all sides by old schist rocks. The waters of 

 this central basin find an exit through a fissure into the river 

 Zambesi, flowing to the east, the basin itself being covered with 

 a layer of calcareous tufa. 



My object in going into the country south of the desert was 

 to instruct the natives in a knowledge of Christianity, but many 

 circumstances prevented my living amongst them more than 

 seven years, amongst which were considerations arising out of 

 the slave system carried on by the Dutch Boers. I resolved to 

 go into the country beyond, and soon found that, for the pur- 

 poses of commerce, it was necessary to have a path to the sea. I 

 might have gone on instructing the natives in religion, but as 

 civilization and Christianity must go on together, I was ob- 

 liged to find a path to the sea, in order that I should not sink 

 to the level of the natives. The chief was overjoyed at the sug- 

 gestion, and furnished me with twenty-seven men, and canoes 

 'and provisions, and presents for the tribes through whose country 

 we had to pass. We might have taken a shorter path to the sea 

 than that to the north, and then to the west, by which we went ; 

 but along the country by the shorter route there is an insect 

 called the tsetse whose bite is fatal to horses, oxen, and dogs, 

 but not to men or donkeys. — You seem to think there is a 

 connection between the two. — The habitat of that insect is along 

 the shorter route to the sea. The bite of it is fatal to domestic 

 animals, not immediately, but certainly in the course of two or 

 three months ; the animal grows leaner and leaner, and gradually 

 dies of emaciation : a horse belonging to Gordon Cumming died 

 of a bite five or six months after it was bitten. 



On account of this insect, I resolved to go to the north, and 

 then westwards to the Portuguese settlement of Loanda. Along 

 the course of the river which we passed game was so abundant 

 that there was no difficulty in supplying the wants of my whole 



