194 DENSE FORESTS— BEEHIVES. Chap. XVI. 



they would have been lavish in their gifts to the niece of 

 their chief. 



"Each house in these hamlets is surrounded by a palisade of 

 thick stakes, and when the owner wishes to enter he removes 

 a stake or two, squeezes through, and then replaces them, 

 so that an enemy coming in the night would find it difficult 

 to discover an entrance. These palisades seem to indicate a 

 sense of insecurity in regard to their fellow-men ; there are 

 at all events no wild beasts to disturb them, for these have 

 been nearly as well thinned by bows and arrows here as by 

 £ims further south. This was a disappointment to us, for we 

 expected the same abundance of game in the north which wo 

 found at the confluence of the Leeba and Zambesi. 



A species of the silver-tree of the Cape (Leucodendron argen- 

 teurn) grows in abundance in the district between this and 

 Samoana's village. The forests became more dense as we 

 went north, and we travelled much more in the deep gloom 

 of the forest than in open sunlight. No passage existed on 

 either side of the narrow path made by the axe. Large 

 climbing plants entwined themselves like boa-constrictors 

 around gigantic trees, and often stood erect by themselves, 

 having choked the trees by which they had been supported. 

 The bark of a fine tree, called " motuia," is used by the 

 Barotse for making fish lines and nets, and the " molompi," 

 so well adapted for paddles by its lightness and flexibility, 

 was abundant. There were other trees quite new to my 

 companions, many of which ran up to an unbroken height of 

 fifty feet of one thickness. 



In these forests we first encountered the artificial beehives 

 so common between this and Angola ; they are made out of 

 the bark of a tree about four feet in circumference, which is 

 taken off in two pieces and then rejoined, the tops and 

 bottoms being made of coiled grass-rope. These hives are 

 placed on high trees in different parts of the forest, and in 

 this way all the w r ax exported from Benguela and Loanda is 

 collected. A "piece of medicine " is tied round the trunk of 

 the tree, and proves a sufficient protection against thieves ; 

 for they believe that certain medicines can inflict disease and 

 dnath though these are supposed to be known only to a few. 



This being the rainy season, great quantities of mushrooms 



