214 COLOUR NOT A MATTER OF RACE. Chap. VIII. 



send up " smoke " in the wet season, like Mosi-oa-tunya ; 

 but when we looked down into the cleft, in which the 

 dark-green narrow river still rolls, we saw, about 800 or 

 1000 feet below us, what, after Mosi-oa-tunya, seemed 

 two insignificant cataracts. It was evident that Pitsane, 

 observing our delight at the Victoria Falls, wished to 

 increase our pleasure by a second wonder. One Mosi-oa- 

 tunya, however, is quite enough for a continent. 



We had now an opportunity of seeing more of the 

 Batoka, than we had on the highland route to our north. 

 They did not wait till the evening before offering food to 

 the strangers. The aged wife of the headman of a hamlet, 

 where we rested at midday, at once kindled a fire, and put 

 on the cooking-pot to make porridge. Both men and 

 women are to be distinguished by greater roundness of 

 feature than the other natives, and the custom of knocking 

 out the upper front teeth gives at once a distinctive cha- 

 racter to the face. Their colour attests the greater altitude 

 of the country in which many of them formerly lived. 

 Some, however, are as dark as the Bashubia and Barotse of 

 the great valley to their west, in which stands Sesheke, 

 formerly the capital of the Balui, or Bashubia. 



The assertion may seem strange, yet it is none the less 

 true, that in all the tribes we have visited we never saw 

 a really black person. Different shades of brown prevail, 

 and often with a bright bronze tint, which no painter, 

 except Mr. Angus, seems able to catch. Those who inhabit 

 elevated, dry situations, and who are not obliged to work 

 much in the sun, are frequently of a light warm brown, 

 " dark but comely." Darkness of colour is probably 

 partly caused by the sun, and partly by something in 

 the climate or soil which we do not yet know. We see 

 something of the same sort in trout and other fish which 

 take their colour from the ponds or streams in which they 

 live. The members of our party were much less em- 



