114 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



man had counselled Mamochisane to kill Sekeletu and marry Mpepe, they 

 were led forth and tossed into the river. On Livingstone remonstrating 

 against this off-hand shedding of human blood, Nokuane, who had been one 

 of the executioners on this occasion, and had also assisted in slaying Mpepe, 

 excused the act by saying, " You see we are still Boers; we are not yet 

 taught." Surely a terrible sarcasm coming from a savage on the doings of 

 so-called civilized men ! At Naliele, the capital of the Barotse, which is built 

 on a great mound raised by Santuru, the party were visited by some of the 

 Mambari. The pure Mambari are as black as the Barotse, but many of them 

 were half-caste Portuguese, and could read and write. The head of the party 

 Livingstone believed to be a true Portuguese. Mpepe had given them full 

 permission to trade in his district, and they had not been slow to take advan- 

 tage of the permission in exchanging the commodities they brought with them 

 for slaves, assuring the people they were only to be employed by them to 

 cultivate the land, and that they would take care of them as their own 

 children. The notion that they were taken and sold across the sea waa new to 

 these simple people, and the lesson taught by Livingstone could not fail to be 

 useful in circumscribing the abominable traffic among themselves and the other 

 tribes he visited on his way to the west coast. Santuru was once visited by 

 the Mambari, but he and his headmen refused them permission to buy any of 

 his people. The Makololo in expelling them from the country quoted this as 

 a precedent. 



Finding that Katonga, as the high ground beyond Naliele was called, 

 was extensive, and free from the annual inundations, Livingstone visited it, 

 but although exceedingly beautiful, and abounding in gardens of great 

 fertility, cultivated with much care by the Barotse, it was found to be equally 

 unhealthy with the low ground. The view from Katonga is thus described : 

 " We could see the great river glancing out at several points, and fine large 

 herds of cattle quietly grazing on the green succulent herbage, among 

 numbers of cattle-stations and villages which are dotted over the landscape. 

 Leches (a kind of antelope) in hundreds fed securely beside them, for they 

 have learned only to keep out of bow-shot, or two hundred yards. When 

 guns come into a country, the animals soon learn their longer range, and 

 begin to run at a distance of five hundred yards." As the current of the river 

 was here about four and a half miles an hour, a sure sign of a rapidly 

 increasing rise in the country, Livingstone determined on pushing still further 

 up the stream in search of a healthy location which he might make his head- 

 quarters. 



Leaving Sekeletu at Naliele, he proceeded up stream, the chief having 

 presented him with men and rowers, and also a herald to announce his 

 arrival at the villages with proper effect, by shouting at the top of his voice, 

 " ' Here comes the lord, the great lion,' the latter phrase being tau e tona, 



