TRA VELLERS' TALES. 247 



everything quite warlike, in the sight of our encampment. My men had been 

 perfectly accustomed to fighting ; they were quite veterans, but in appearance 

 they were not near so fine as these well-fed Zambesians. They thought they 

 were intimidating us, but my men were perfectly sure of beating them. One 

 of my chief men seemed to be afraid, because they never make a war dance 

 without intending to attack, and got up during the night and said, " There 

 they are, there they are ! " and ran off, and we never saw him again. 



The country is full of lions, and the natives believe that the souls of 

 their chiefs go into the lion, and consequently when they meet a lion they 

 salute and honour it. In travelling, the natives never sleep on the ground ; 

 they always make little huts up in the trees. We had a good many diffi- 

 culties of the nature I have described, with the different tribes on the confines 

 of civilization. The people in the centre of the country seem totally different 

 from the fringe of population near the coast. Those in the centre are very 

 anxious to have trade. You may understand their anxiety in this respect 

 when I inform you, that the chief of the Makololo furnished me with 27 men 

 and 15 oxen, canoes, and provisions, in order to endeavour to form a path to 

 the West Coast; and on another occasion the same man furnished 110 men, 

 to try and make another path to the East Coast. We had found the country 

 so full of forest, and abounding with so many rivers and so much marsh, that 

 it was impossible to make a path to the west, and so we came back and 

 endeavoured to find one to the east. In going that way, we never carried 

 water a single day. Any one who has travelled in South Africa, knows the 

 difficulty of procuring water, but we were never without water a single day. 

 We slept near water, passed by water several times during the day, and slept 

 near it again. 



The western route being impracticable for waggons, we came back, 

 and my companions returned to their friends and relatives. I did not 

 require to communicate anything about our journey, or speak even a word 

 about what we had seen ; as my men got up in all the meetings which were 

 held, and told the people of what had passed. One of the great stories they 

 told was, " We have been to the end of the world. Our forefathers used to 

 tell us that the world has no end, but we have been to the end of the world. 

 We went marching along, thinking that what the ancients had told us was 

 true, that the world had no end ; but all at once the world said to us, ' I am 

 finished ; there is no more of me ; there is only sea in front.' All my goods 

 were gone when I got down into the Barotse valley, among the Makololo, 

 and then they supplied me for three months ; and in forming the eastern path, 

 which I hope will be the permanent one into the interior of the country, the 

 chief furnished me with twelve oxen for slaughter and abundance of other 

 provisions, without promise or expectation of payment. At one time it was 

 thought, instead of going down the way we came, we should go on the other 



