the king's fool. 537 



" Neither goats, sheep, nor cattle thrive here, so the people are 

 confined to fowls and fish. Cassava is very extensively culti- 

 vated: indeed, so generally is this plant grown, that it is impossi- 

 ble to know which is town and which is country : every hut 

 has a plantation around it, in which is grown cassava, Holcus 

 sorghum, maize, beans, nuts. 



" Mohamad gives the same account of the River Luapula 

 and Lake Bemba that Jumbe did, but he adds, that the Cham- 

 beze, where we crossed it, is the Luapula before it enters Bemba 

 or Bangweolo : on coming out of that lake it turns round and 

 comes away to the north, as Luapula, and, without touching 

 the Mofwe, goes into Moero; then, emerging thence at the 

 northwest end it becomes Lualaba, goes into Rua, forms a 

 lake there, and afterwards goes into another lake beyond 

 Tanganyika. 



" The Lakelet Mofwe fills during the rains and spreads west- 

 ward, much beyond its banks. Elephants wandering in its 

 mud flats when covered are annually killed in numbers : if it 

 were connected with the Lake Moero the flood would run off. 



" Many of Casembe's people appear with the ears cropped and 

 hands lopped off: the present chief has been often guilty of this 

 barbarity. One man has just come to us without ears or hands : 

 he tries to excite our pity, making a chirruping noise, by strik- 

 ing his cheeks with the stumps of his hands. 



" A dwarf also, one Zofu, with backbone broken, comes about 

 us : he talks with an air of authority, and is present at all pub- 

 lic occurrences : the people seem to bear with him. He is a 

 stranger from a tribe in the north, and works in his garden 

 very briskly : his height is three feet nine inches." 



Casembe is rather a title than the name of an individual : it 

 signifies general, and the queer-looking hard-hearted individual 

 who wore that honor at the time of Dr. Livingstone's visit did 

 very little credit to the predecessors, among whom may be 

 classed the splendid-looking chief whose portrait we are able to 

 lay before the reader. His people seemed to have caught some- 

 thing of his harsh temper; the doctor records that they were the 

 most savage set that he had seen ; without the least justification 

 they would strike each other most angrily. 



Mohamad bin Saleh had a low opinion of his lordship and 



