PREFATORY LETTER. xv 



Zambesi (orLeeambye) — one part in canoes, and the other part 

 on foot or on riding-oxen — bearing Sekeletu's ivory for the 

 market of Loanda, and such light baggage as they were able 

 to carry for their own support in their long and perilous 

 journey. In this way they passed through the whole of the 

 Barotse valley, and at length entered on a country that owed 

 no allegiance to Sekeletu. They afterwards quitted the Zam- 

 besi, and ascended the Leeba, a large tributary river which 

 led them towards the north-west. Continuing their onward 

 course, among tribes who did not obstruct them, but gave 

 them generous and friendly help, they were induced (on the 

 10th of February, 1854) to leave their canoes behind: and 

 then, after crossing vast swampy places and many tributary 

 streams that fall to the left bank of the Leeba, they slowly 

 worked their way; and, on the 20th of February, 1854, came 

 upon the water-shed of South Africa. 



This water-shed is not a mountain-chain — sending its brawl- 

 ing torrents, on the one side towards the Atlantic, and on the 

 other towards the Indian seas — but is represented by a vast 

 table-land which stretches through many degrees of latitude; 

 and (north of the Zambesi) through many degrees of longitude; 

 and is crowned, here and there, with great swamps and tangled 

 and almost impenetrable forests, or by shallow lakes which 

 are fringed with the rankest tropical vegetation. From be- 

 neath these swampy lands ooze out those waters which form 

 the northern feeders of the great Zambesi : — not in dark brown 

 streams, like those which come from the mountain-bogs of the 

 British Isles, but in clear pellucid water which has filtered 

 through the uncarbonized roots and grass of the upper plains. 



Such appears to be the nature of the physical boundary 

 which stretches far and wide across a large portion of the con- 

 tinent, and separates those central parts of South Africa, from 

 which our travellers started, from the unexplored regions ex- 

 tending towards the north. How far the table-land extends 

 in that direction, and whether it does not blend itself with, 



