THE I.EEBA RIVER. 247 



We now began to ascend the Leeba. The water is black 

 in colour as compared with the main stream, which here 

 assumes the name of Kabompo. The L,eeba flows placidly, 

 and, unlike the parent river, receives numbers of little 

 rivulets from both sides. It winds slowly through the 

 most charming meadows, each of which has either a soft 

 sedgy centre, large pond, or trickling rill, down the 

 middle. The trees are now covered with a profusion of 

 the freshest foliage, and seem planted in groups of such 

 pleasant, graceful outline, that art could give no additional 

 charm. The grass, which had been burned off and was 

 growing again after the rains, was short and green ; and 

 all the scenery so like that of a carefully-tended gentle- 

 man's park, that one is scarcely reminded that the 

 surrounding region is in the hands of simple nature alone. 

 I suspect that the level meadows are inundated annually, 

 for the spots on which the trees stand are elevated three 

 or four feet above them, and these elevations, being of 

 different shapes, give the strange variety of outline of the 

 park-like woods. Numbers of a fresh-water shell are 

 scattered all over these valleys. The elevations, as I 

 have observed elsewhere, are of a soft sandy soil, and the 

 meadows of black rich alluvial loam. There are many 

 beautiful flowers, and many bees to sip their nectar. We 

 found plenty of honey in the woods, and saw the stages on 

 which the Earonda dry their meat, when they come 

 down to hunt and gather the produce of the wild hives. 

 In one part we came upon groups of lofty trees as straight 

 as masts, with festoons of orchilla-weed hanging from the 

 branches. This, which is used as a dye-stuff, is found 

 nowhere in the dry country to the south. It prefers the 

 humid climate near the west coast. 



A large buffalo was wounded, and ran into the thickest 

 part of the forest, bleeding profusely. The young men 

 went on his trail ; and, though the vegetation was so dense 

 that no one could have run more than a few yards, most of 

 them went along quite carelessly, picking and eating a 

 fruit of the melon family, called Mponko. When the 

 animal heard them approach he always fled, shifting his 

 stand and doubling on his course in the most cunning 

 manner. In other cases I have known them to turn back 

 to a point a few yards from their own trail, and then he 

 down in a hollow, waiting for the hunter to come up. 

 Though a heavy, lumbering-looking animal, his charge is 



