1867.] DR. LIVINGSTONE DANGEROUSLY ILL. '10o 



(Pambete), at which we first touched the Lake, is surrounded 

 by palm-oil trees — not the stunted ones of Lake Nyassa, but 

 the real West Coast palm-oil tree,* requiring two men to 

 carry a bunch of the ripe fruit. In the morning and evening 

 huge crocodiles may be observed quietly making their way 

 to their feeding grounds ; hippopotami snort by night and 

 at early morning. 



After I had been a few days here I had a fit of insensi- 

 bility, which shows the power of fever without medicine. I 

 found myself floundering outside my hut and unable to get 

 in ; I tried to lift myself from my back by laying hold of two 

 posts at the entrance, but when I got nearly upright I let 

 them go, and fell back heavily on my head on a box. The 

 boys had seen the wretched state I was in, and hung a 

 blanket at the entrance of the hut, that no stranger might 

 see my helplessness; some hours elapsed before I could 

 recognize where I was. 



As for these Balungu, as they are called, they have a 

 fear of us, they do not understand our objects, and they 

 keep aloof. They promise everything and do nothing ; but 

 for my excessive weakness we should go on, but we wait 

 for a recovery of strength. 



As people they are greatly reduced in numbers by the 

 Mazitu, who carried off very large numbers of the women, 

 boys, girls, and children. They train or like to see the 

 young men arrayed as Mazitu, but it would be more profit- 

 able if they kept them to agriculture. They are all exces- 

 sively polite. The clapping of hands on meeting is something- 

 excessive, and then the string of salutations that accompany 

 it would please the most fastidious Frenchman. It implies 

 real politeness, for in marching with them they always 

 remove branches out of the path, and indicate stones or 

 stumps in it carefully to a stranger, yet we cannot prevail 



* Elais, sp. (?). 



