64 THE ZAMBESI— SLAVE-TRADE. Chap. IV. 



previously known to exist there at all. The Portuguese maps 

 all represent it as rising far to the east of where we now were. 

 We saw it at the end of the dry season, and yet there was a 

 breadth of from three hundred to six hundred yards of deep 

 flowing water. At the period of its annual inundation it rises 

 twenty feet in perpendicular height, and floods fifteen or 

 twenty miles of lands adjacent to its banks. 



The country over which we had travelled from the Chob9 

 was perfectly flat, except where large ant-hills formed 

 mounds a few feet high. These are generally covered with 

 wild date-trees and palmyras, and in some parts there 

 are forests of mimosas and mopane. The tract between the 

 Chobe and Zambesi is occasionally flooded, and there are large 

 patches of swamps lying either near the former or on its 

 banks. The Makololo lived among these swamps for the sake 

 of the protection the deep reedy rivers afforded them against 

 their enemies. There was no suitable place for a settlement. 

 The healthy districts were defenceless, and the safe localities 

 were so deleterious to human life, that the original Basutos 

 had nearly all been cut off by the fever. I therefore feared 

 to subject my family to the scourge. 



As we were the first white men the inhabitants had ever 

 seen, we were visited by prodigious numbers. One of our 

 visitors appeared in a gaudy dressing-gown of printed calico ; 

 others had garments of printed cotton, and of blue, green, and 

 ied baize. These had been purchased, in exchange for boys, 



fi>) from a tribe called Mambari, which is situated near Bihe, and 

 who only began the slave-trade with the Makololo in 1850. 

 They had a number of old Portuguese guns, which Sebituane 

 thought would be most important in any future invasion of 

 Matebele. He offered to buy them with cattle or ivory, but 

 their owners refused everything except boys about fourteen 

 years of age. The desire to possess the guns at length prevailed, 

 and eight were obtained in exchange for as many boys. These 

 were not Makololo children, but captives of the black races 

 they had conquered. I have never known in Africa an 



( f 3 N instance of a parent selling his own offspring. The Makololo 

 afterwards made a foray, in conjunction with the Mambari, 

 against some tribes to the eastward. The Mam6ari were 

 to have the captives, and the Makololo were to have the 



