Chap. XII. GARDENS— GAME. 131 



hair in three-fold cords, and lay them carefully down around 

 the sides of the head. They are quite as dark as the Barotse, 

 but have among them a number of half-castes, with their 

 peculiar yellow sickly hue. They showed the habits which 

 prevailed in their own country by digging up and eating, 

 even here where large game abounds, the mice and moles: 

 which infest the district. The half-castes could all read and 

 write, and the leader of the party, if not a real Portuguo 

 had, at least, European hair. I feel assured they were the 

 first individuals of Portuguese blood who ever saw the (33) 

 Zambesi in the centre of the continent, and they had not 

 reached it till two years after our discovery in 1851. 



While still at Xaliele I walked out to Katongo (lat. 15° 10' 

 33"), on the ridge which bounds the valley of the Barotse in 

 that direction, and found it covered with trees. It is the 

 commencement of the lands which are never inundated. 

 Their gentle rise from the dead level of the valley much re- 

 sembles the edge of the Desert in the valley of the Nile. But 

 here the Banyeti have fine gardens, and raise great quantities 

 of maize, millet, and native com (Holcus sorghum'), of large 

 grain and beautifully white. They also grow pumpkins, 

 melons, beans, ground-nuts, yams, sugar-cane, the Egyptian 

 arum, the sweet potato (Convolvulus batates), and two kinds of 

 manioc or cassava (Jativpha manihot and J. utilissima, a variety 

 which contains scarcely any poison). They have in addition 

 wild fruits and water-fowl, and plenty of fish in the river, its 

 branches and lagoons. The scene from the ridge, on looking 

 back, was beautiful. The great river glanced out at different 

 points, and fine large herds of cattle were quietly grazing 

 among numbers of villages dotted over the landscape. Leches 

 in hundreds fed securely beside the oxen, for the wild animals 

 keep only out of bow-shot, or two hundred yards. When guns 

 come into a country these sagacious creatures soon leam their 

 range, and begin to run at a distance of five hundred yards. 



I imagined in consequence of its slight elevation that 

 Katongo might be healthy, but was informed that no part of 

 this region is exempt from fever. When the waters begin to 

 retire, masses of decayed vegetation and mud are exposed to 

 the torrid sun. The grass is so rank in its growth that it 

 completely conceals the black alluvial soil of this periodical 



