LAKE DILOLO. 139 



fine animals, almost white, and as handsome and nearly as active as Elands. 

 As he did not milk them they were in a semi- wild state; and when he wanted 

 to kill one it had to be stalked and shot. 



Livingstone explained to him how to milk them. The Balonda are 

 remarkable for a formal etiquette which will not permit them to eat meat 

 prepared by others, or to eat in the presence of strangers ; and when an 

 inferior meets a superior he drops on his knees and puts handfuls of dust on 

 his breast. 



Here several of Livingstone's people suffered from fever, and he had 

 another attack himself. These frequent seizures had reduced his strength, 

 but had not impaired in the slightest degree that resolute and iron will which 

 allowed nothing to interfere with the great end he had in view. Before he 

 was quite recovered he was on the move again accompanied by three guides 

 given by Katema. While here and at Shinte's town they had wanted for 

 nothing the people had to give, and they were able to return the compliment, 

 as while there they killed an ox, a share of which was a great boon to people 

 who seldom tasted flesh meat. The want of cattle throughout a district so 

 admirably adapted for them, on account of the abundance of grass and water, 

 and its freedom from tsetse struck him as singular. 



Pushing on through flooded plains and dank forests, the party reached 

 the narrow end of Lake Dilolo, which at its widest is about three miles broad, 

 and is about seven miles long. Livingstone's weak state rendered it unde- 

 sirable that he should examine it carefully, even although this only involved 

 a few miles of travel. The frequent attacks of fever from which he had suf- 

 fered made him anxious to loiter as little by the way as possible. His pas- 

 sionate desire was to reach the coast; and the only dread that seemed to 

 possess him was, that he might succumb before accomplishing his purpose, in 

 which case his long and toilsome journey would have been useless to man- 

 kind. On reaching the unflooded higher lands beyond the plain, Livingstone 

 discovered to his joy and surprise that he now stood on an elevated plateau 

 which formed the water-shed both of the northern and the southern rivers. 

 The streams running north fell into the Kasai, or Loke, and those to the 

 south united to form the Zambesi (under the names of the Leeba and the 

 Leeambye), the upward course of whose waters he had followed with so much 

 ease and comfort. Unwittingly he had also reached the western extremity of 

 the water-shed of the great Lualaba, about which he had so much to tell us 

 years afterwards. 



Here the valleys were deeper and more beautiful than any he had yet 

 seen, their steep sides were seamed with water courses ; and as each of these 

 valleys was drained by a running stream, the growth of the trees was not 

 impeded by the accumulation for months annually of stagnant water. Many 

 of these trees grew to a great height — sixty and eighty feet of clean straight 



