Chap. XXIV. THE SOUTHERN LOTEMBWA. 319 



and stout in proportion, there would have been a breakdown, 

 had he not been accustomed to it. On the morrow he pre- 

 sented us with a cow, to eat with the abundant supplies of 

 meal he had given. He then departed for the hunting-ground, 

 after assuring me that the town and everything in it were 

 mine, and that his factotum, Shakatwala, would remain and 

 attend to every want, and also conduct us to the Leeba. 



On attempting to slaughter the cow presented to us, we 

 found the herd as wild as buffaloes ; at the sound of a gun 

 they fled many miles into the forest, and were with great 

 difficulty brought back : even the herdsman was afraid to go 

 near them. The majority of them were white, and they were 

 all beautiful animals. After hunting our cow for two days it 

 was at last despatched. 



Leaving Katema's town on the 19th, and proceeding four 

 miles to the eastward, we forded the southern branch of lake 

 Dilolo, which was here a mile and a quarter broad. The ford 

 was waist-deep, and much encumbered with masses of arum 

 and rushes. Going to the eastward about three miles, we 

 came to the Southern Lotembwa itself, which issues from the 

 branch of the lake above referred to, and runs in a valley two 

 miles broad. It is here eighty or ninety yards wide, and 

 contains numerous islands covered with a dense sylvan vege- 

 tation. In the rainy season the valley is flooded, and, as the 

 waters retire, great multitudes of fish are caught by means of 

 weirs. A species of small fish, about the size of the minnow s 

 which is caught in great abundance, is dried in the sun, and 

 has a pungent aromatic flavour. On many of the paths which 

 had been flooded a nasty sort of slime of decayed vegetable 

 matter is left behind, inducing much sickness. We did not 

 find our friend Mozinkwa at his pleasant home on the Lo- 

 kaloeje; his wife w T as dead, and he had removed elsewhere. 

 He followed us some distance, but our reappearance seemed 

 only to revive his sorrow. We found the pontoon at the 

 village in which we left it. It had been carefully preserved ; 

 but a mouse had eaten a hole in it, and rendered it useless. 



We traversed the extended plain on the north bank of the 

 Leeba, and crossed this river a little farther on at Kanyonke's 

 rillage, about twenty miles west of our former ford. The first 

 stage beyond the Leeba brought us to the village of Chebende, 



