228 DESEETED BATOKA VILLAGES. Chap. XJ. 



mountain ; in the morning hoar frost covered the ground, and 

 thin ice was on the pools. Skirting the southern flank of Ta- 

 bacheu, we soon passed from the hills on to the portion of the 

 vast table-land called Mataba, and looking back saw all the 

 way across the Zambesi valley to the lofty ridge some thirty 

 miles off, which, coming from the Mashona, a country in the 

 S.E., runs to the N.W. to join the ridge at the angle of 

 which are the Victoria Falls, and then bends far to the 

 NYE. from the same point. Only a few years since, 

 these extensive highlands were peopled by the Batoka ; nu- 

 merous herds of cattle furnished abundance of milk, and 

 the rich soil amply repaid the labour of the husbandman ; 

 now large herds of buffaloes, zebras, and antelopes fatten 

 on the excellent pasture ; and on that land, which formerly 

 supported multitudes, not a man is to be seen. In 

 travelling from Monday morning till late on Saturday 

 afternoon, all the way from Tabacheu to Moachemba, 

 which is only twenty-one miles of latitude from the 

 Victoria Falls, and constantly passing the ruined sites 

 of utterly deserted Batoka villages, we did not fall in 

 with a single person. The Batoka were driven out of 

 their noble coimtry by the invasions of Moselekatse and 

 Sebetuane. Several tribes of Bechuana and Basutu, flee- 

 ing from the Zulu or Matebele Chief, Moselekatse, reached 

 the Zambesi above the Falls. Coming from a land without 

 rivers, none of them knew how to swim ; and one tribe, called 

 the Bamangwato, wishing to cross the Zambesi, was ferried 

 over, men and women separately, to different islands, by one 

 of the Batoka Chiefs; the men were then left to starve and 

 the women appropriated by the ferryman and his people. 

 Sekonii, the present Chief of the Bamangwato, then an in- 

 fant in his mother's arms, was enabled, through the kindness 



