Chap. XII. RAPIDS AND FALLS. 147 



existed, have seldom been about anything else than cattle 

 and so much is this recognised that several tribes refuse U 

 keep them because they tempt their enemies to come anc 

 steal. I have heard of but one war from another cause. 

 Three Barolongs, who were brothers, fought for the possession 

 of a woman, and the tribe has remained divided ever since. 



From the bend up to the north, called Katima-molelo (" 1 

 quenched fire "), the bed of the river is rocky, and the stream 

 runs fast, forming a succession of rapids, which prevent con- 

 tinuous navigation when the water is low. They are not 

 visible when the river is full. There are cataracts however 

 at Nambwe, Bombwe, and Kale, with a fall of between four 

 and six feet, which must always be dangerous. The falls of 

 Gonye present a still more serious obstacle. The drop is 

 about thirty feet, and we were obliged to take up the canoes, 

 and carry them more than a mile by land. The water, after it 

 descends, goes boiling along, and gives the idea of great 

 masses of it rolling over and over. For many miles below the 

 fall the channel is narrowed to a hundred yards, and at the 

 times of the inundation the river, where it is compressed 

 between these high rocky banks, rises fifty or sixty feet in 

 perpendicular height. Tradition reports that two hippopo- 

 tamus-hunters, who were in eager pursuit of a wounded 

 animal, ventured too far into the rush of water, and were 

 whirled over the precipice by the roaring torrent. Another 

 tiadition states that a man of the Barotse came down the 

 stream and availed himself of the falls for the purposes of 

 irrigation. Such superior minds must have arisen from time 

 to time in these regions, but, ignorant of letters, they have 

 left no memorial behind them. We dug from his garden an 

 inferior kind of potato (Sisiuydne), which, when once planted, 

 never dies out. It was bitter and waxy. As it was not in 

 flower, I cannot say whether it is a soianaceous plant or not. 



As we passed up the river the different villages of Banyeti 

 turned out to present Sekeletu with food and skins, as their 

 tribute. The tsetse lighted on us even in the middle of the 

 stream, but they appeared no more when we came to about 

 16° 16' S; latitude, where the lofty wooded banks left the 

 river, and stretched away in ridges, two or three hundred feet 

 high, to the N.N.E. and N.N.W., until they were twenty or 



