CHAP. VI. DESERTED BATOKA VILLAGES. 163 



a noble view of the great valley in which the Zambesi 

 flows. The cultivated portions are so small in com- 

 parison to the rest of the landscape that the valley appears 

 nearly all forest, with a few grassy glades. We spent 

 the night of the 28th July high above the level of the sea, 

 by the rivulet Tyotyo, near Tabacheu or Chirebuechina, 

 names both signifying white mountain ; in the morning 

 hoar frost covered the ground, and thin ice was on the 

 pools. Skirting the southern flank of Tabacheu, we soon 

 ]3assed from the hills on to the portion of the vast table- 

 land called Mataba, and looking back saw all the way 

 across the Zambesi valley to the lofty ridge some thirty 

 miles off, which, coming from the Mashona, a country in 

 the S.E., runs to the N.W. to join the ridge at the angle 

 of which are the Victoria Falls, and then bends far to the 

 N.E. from the same point. Only a few years since these 

 extensive highlands were peopled by the Batoka; nu- 

 merous herds of cattle furnished abundance of milk, and 

 the rich soil amply repaid the labour of the husbandman ; 

 now large herds of buffaloes, zebras, and antelopes fatten 

 on the excellent pasture; and on that land, which formerly 

 supported multitudes, not a man is to been seen. In tra- 

 velling from Monday morning till late on Saturday after- 

 noon, all the way from Tabacheu to Moachemba, which is 

 only twenty-one miles of latitude from the Victoria Falls, 

 and constantly passing the ruined sites of utterly deserted 

 Botoka villages, we did not fall in with a single person. 

 The Batoka were driven out of their noble country by the 

 invasions of Moselekatse and Sebetuane. Several tribes of 

 Bechuana and Basutu, fleeing from the Zulu or Matebele 

 chief Moselekatse reached the Zambesi above the Falls. 

 Coming from a land without rivers, none of them knew 

 how to swim; and one tribe, called the Bamangwato, 

 wishing to cross the Zambesi, was ferried over, men and 

 women separately, to different islands, by one of the Batoka 



