CROPS AND GAME. 205 



white. They grow, also, yams, sugar-cane, the Egyptian 

 arum, sweet potato {Convolvulus batata), two kinds of 

 manioc or cassava {Jatropha manihot and /. utilissima, 

 a variety containing scarcely any poison,), besides pump- 

 kins, melons, beans, and ground-nuts. These, with plenty 

 of fish in the river, its branches and lagoons, wild fruits 

 and water-fowl, always make the people refer to the 

 Barotse as the land of plenty. The scene from the ridge, 

 on looking back, was beautiful. One cannot see the 

 western side of the valley in a cloudy day, such as that 

 was when we visited the stockade, but we could see the 

 great river glancing out at different 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 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. 



I imagined the slight elevation (Katongo) might be 

 healthy, but was informed that no part of this region 

 is exempt from fever. When the waters begin to retire 

 from this valley, such masses of decayed vegetation and 

 mud are exposed to the torrid sun, that even the natives 

 suffer severely from attacks of fever. The grass is so 

 rank in its growth, that one cannot see the black alluvial 

 soil of the bottom of this periodical lake. Even when 

 the grass falls down in winter, or is " laid " by its own 

 weight, one is obliged to lift the feet so high, to avoid 

 being tripped up by it, as to make walking excessively 

 fatiguing. Young leches are hidden beneath it by their 

 dams ; and the Makololo youth complain of being unable 

 to run in the Barotse land on this account. There was 

 evidently no healthy spot in this quarter ; and the current 

 of the river being about four and a half miles per hour 

 (one hundred yards in sixty seconds), I imagined we might 

 find what was needed in the higher lands, from which the 

 river seemed to come. I resolved, therefore, to go to the 

 utmost limits of the Barotse country before coming to a 

 final conclusion. Katongo was the best place we had 

 seen ; but in order to accomplish a complete examina- 

 tion, I left Sekeletu at Naliele, and ascended the river. 

 He furnished me with men, besides my rowers, and among 



