iOO HONEY AND WAX. Chap. XXX. 



comes forth about the end of April, at the period when the 

 corn is ripe ; indeed, her appearance abroad with her young 

 is one of the signs for knowing when harvest ought to 

 commence. She is said sometimes to hatch her eggs at inter 

 vals, the second couple of young ones making their appearance 

 just when the first are ready to leave the nest; in this case 

 the female comes out with the first couple, the orifice is again 

 plastered up, and both male and female attend to the wants 

 of the young which are left. 



The honey-guides were very assiduous in their friendly 

 ofiices, and enabled my men to get a large quantity of honey ; 

 but though bees abound, the wax of these parts forms no 

 article of trade, as it does in Londa. It is probable that the 

 good market for wax afforded to Angola by the churches of 

 Brazil led to the gradual development of that branch of 

 commerce there. The reports brought by my other party 

 from Loanda of the value of wax induced some of my present 

 companions to bring small quantities of it to Tete, but, not 

 being properly prepared, it was so dark coloured that no one 

 would purchase it; I afterwards saw a little at Kilimane, 

 which had been procured from the natives somewhere in this 

 region. Though we were now approaching the Portuguese 

 settlement, the country was still full of large game. Lions 

 and hyaenas abounded ; the former are never destroyed, as the 

 people believe that the souls of their chiefs enter into them, 

 and that a chief may even metamorphose himself into a lion, 

 kill any one he chooses, and then return to the human form ; 

 whenever therefore they see one they commence the usual 

 salutation of clapping their hands. As an evidence of the 

 numbers of these animals I may mention that we saw little 

 huts made in trees, indicating the places where some of the 

 inhabitants have slept when benighted in the fields. As my 

 men frequently left the line of march in order to catch korwes, 

 or follow the honey-guides, they excited the astonishment of 

 the guides, who were constantly warning them of the danger 

 they thereby incurred from lions. I often kept considerably 

 ahead of the main body of my men on this account. 



We crossed the rivulets Kapopo and Ue, now running, but 

 usually dry. The latter flows between banks 12 feet high, 

 consisting of a crumbling alluvial sandstone. Great numbers 



