350 ABUNDANCE OF FRUIT. Chap. XXVI 



Lekone, runs westward, and falls into the Zambesi a little 

 above the commencement of the rapids. We passed the re- 

 mains of a very large town, which must have been inhabited 

 for a long period; for the millstones of gneiss, trap, and 

 quartz were worn down two and a half inches perpendicu- 

 larly. The region around is pretty well covered with forest : 

 but there is abundance of open pasturage, and as we are 

 ascending in altitude we find the grass short, and altogether 

 unlike the tangled herbage of the Barotse valley. 



It is remarkable that we now meet with the same trees we 

 saw in descending towards the west coast. A kind of sterculia, 

 which is the most common tree at Loanda, and the baobab 

 flourish here ; as well as the tree called moshuka, which we 

 found near Tala Mungongo, yielding a fruit resembling small 

 apples, but tasting like a pear. We found prodigious quanti- 

 ties of this fruit as we went along, and my men almost lived 

 upon it for many days : the tree attains the height of 15 

 or 20 feet, and has hard, glossy leaves as large as a man's 

 hand. We also obtained baskets of maneko, a curious fruit 

 about the size of a walnut, with a horny rind, split into five 

 pieces: it contains a fine glutinous matter, sweet as sugar. 

 The seeds are covered with a yellow silky down, and are not 

 eaten. W'e got also abundance of the motsouri and mamosho. 

 We saw the Batoka eating the beans called nju, which are con- 

 tained in a large square pod ; also the pulp between the seeds 

 of nux vomica, and the motsintsela. Other fruits become ripe 

 at other seasons, as the motsikiri, which yields an oil — a 

 magnificent tree, bearing masses of dark evergreen leaves. 

 We saw trees allowed to stand in gardens, and some of the 

 Batoka even plant them— a practice seen nowhere else among 

 natives. A species of leucodendron abounds, the young leaves 

 of which were observed to twist themselves round during the 

 heat of the day, so as to expose only the edge to the rays of 

 the sun. The acacias in the same circumstances, and also the 

 mopane (Bauhinia), fold their leaves together, presenting the 

 smallest possible surface to the sun, after the manner of the 

 eucalypti of Australia. In the adjacent country palms abound, 

 but none of the species which yield the oil ; there are numbers 

 of flowers and bulbs just shooting up from the soil, and, though 



