60 CURATIVE SLEEP. Chap. II. 



one rock overhanging and resting on another; the shelter 

 induced the peculiarly strong and overpowering inclination 

 to sleep, which too much sun sometimes causes. This sleep 

 is curative of what may be incipient sunstroke : in its first 

 gentle touches, it caused the dream to flit over the boiling- 

 brain, that they had become lunatics and had been sworn in 

 as members of the Alpine club ; and then it became so 

 heavy that it made theni feel as if a portion of existence had 

 been cut out from their lives. The sun is excessively hot, 

 and feels sharp in Africa; but, probably from the greater 

 dryness of the atmosphere, we never heard of a single case 

 of sunstroke, so common in India. The Makololo told Dr. 

 Livingstone they "always thought he had a heart, but now 

 they believed he had none," and tried to persuade Dr. Kirk 

 to return, on the ground that it must be evident that, in 

 attempting to go where no living foot could tread, his leader 

 had given unmistakeable signs of having gone mad. All 

 their efforts of persuasion, however, were lost upon Dr. Kirk, 

 as he had not yet learned their language, and his leader 

 knowing his companion to be equally anxious with himself to 

 solve the problem of the navigableness of Kebrabasa, was not 

 at pains to enlighten him. At one part a bare mountain spur 

 barred the way, and had to be surmounted by a perilous and 

 circuitous route, along which the crags were so hot that it 

 was scarcely possible for the hand to hold on long enough to 

 ensure safety in the passage; and had the foremost of the 

 party lost his hold, he would have hurled all behind him into 

 the river at the foot of the promontory ; yet in this wild hot 

 region, as they descended again to the river, they met a fish- 

 erman casting his hand-net into the boiling eddies, and he 

 pointed out the cataract of Morumbwa ; within an hour they 

 were trying to measure it from an overhanging rock, at a 



