ARTIFICIAL MOUNDS. 113 



caused by slavery or the possession of cattle ; and as the slave-dealers had 

 never reached their peaceful habitations, and the tsetse rendered the possession 

 of cattle impossible, they had lived secure from the ambitious and selfish 

 designs of more powerful and warlike tribes. Tribute was regularly paid to 

 Sekeletu in the simple articles constructed by their industrial skill, and in ex- 

 change they lived contented and happy under his protection. When the river 

 is low, a series of rapids make navigation difficult for considerable distances, 

 but the travellers met with no serious obstacle until they reached the falls of 

 Gonye, where the river, narrowing into a space of seventy or eighty yards wide, 

 falls a distance of thirty feet. There they had to carry the canoes for about a 

 mile over land. 



At this place Livingstone heard of a tradition of a man who took advan- 

 tage of the falls to lead a portion of the river over the level country below for 

 the purposes of irrigation. His garden or farm was pointed out, and though 

 neglected for generations, they dug up an inferior kind of potato, which was 

 found to be bitter and waxy. If properly cultivated and irrigated, Living- 

 stone appears to think that the valleys through which the great rivers and 

 their affluents flow might be made as productive as the valley of the Nile, to 

 which that of the Zambesi bears a striking resemblance. The intelligent and 

 generally peaceable character of the tribes visited by Livingstone in Central 

 Africa is a guarantee that, with the introduction of agricultural implements, 

 and the humanising influence of contact with civilization, such a desirable 

 state of matters may speedily follow the opening up of the country for pur- 

 poses of legitimate trade with Europeans. 



The valley of the Barotse, a district inhabited by a people of that name, 

 subject to the Makololo, which extends west to the junction of the Leeambye 

 and Leeba, is about one hundred miles in length, and from ten to thirty miles 

 in width, with the Leeambye winding down the middle. The whole of this 

 valley is inundated, not by local rainfall, but by the flooding of the river, just 

 as the Nile valley is flooded by the overflow of that river, caused by rains 

 falling within the tropics. The villages of the Barotse are built on mounds, 

 which are at a sufficient elevation to be secure from the annual floods. These 

 mounds are for the most part artificial, and are said to have been raised by a 

 famous chief of the Barotse, named Santuru, who planted them with trees, 

 which give a grateful shade besides adding to the beauty of the scenery. As 

 this portion of the valley is free from the dreaded tsetse, the Barotse have 

 plenty of cattle, which find abundant food in the rich pasturage. At the 

 approach of the floods they retire to the high grounds, where food being less 

 abundant, they rapidly fall off in condition. Their return to the low ground 

 on the subsidence of the river is a season of rejoicing among the people, be- 

 cause the time of plenty has returned once more. 



In one of the Barotse towns Mpepe's father lived, and as he and another 



q 



