Chai\ XVI, HOSPITABLE OLD HEADMAN. 325 



in the water, near the outlet of Kariba, at a distance look 

 like a fort ; and such large masses dislocated, bent, and even 

 twisted to a remarkable degree, at once attest some tre- 

 mendous upheaving and convulsive action of nature, which 

 probably caused Kebrabasa, Kariba, and the Victoria Falls 

 to assume their present forms ; it took place after the for- 

 mation of the coal, that mineral having then been tilted up. 

 We have probably nothing equal to it in the present quiet 

 operations of nature. 



On emerging we pitched our camp by a small stream, 

 the Pendele, a few miles below the gorge. The Palabi 

 mountain stands on the western side of the lower end of 

 the Kariba strait ; the range to which it belongs crosses the 

 river, and runs to the south-east. Chikumbula, a hospitable 

 old headman, under Nchomokela, the paramount Chief of a 

 large district, whom we did not see, brought us next morn- 

 ing a great basket of meal, and four fowls, with some beer, 

 and a cake of salt, " to make it taste good." Chikumbula 

 said that the elephants plagued them, by eating up the 

 cotton-plants ; but his people seem to be well off. 



A few days before we came, they caught three buffaloes in 

 pitfalls in one night, and, unable to eat them all, left one 

 to rot. Dming the night the wind changed and blew from 

 the dead buffalo to our sleeping-place ; and a hungry lion, 

 not at all dainty in his food, stirred up the putrid mass, and 

 growled and gloated over his feast, to the disturbance of our 

 slumbers. Game of all kinds is in most extraordinary abun- 

 dance, especially from this point to below the Kafue, and so 

 it is on Moselekatse's side, where there are no inhabitants. 

 The drought drives all the game to the river to drink. 

 An hour's walk on the right bank, morning or evening, reveals 

 a country swarming with wild animals : vast herds of pallahs, 

 many waterbucks, koodoos, buffaloes, wild pigs, elands, zebras, 



