456 WATER-TURTLES. 



The grievance which the Barotse most feel, is being 

 obliged to live with Sekeletu at Linyanti, where there is 

 neither fish nor fowl, nor any other kind of food, equal 

 in quantity to what they enjoy in their own fat valley. 

 A short distance below the confluence of the Leeba 

 and I^eeambye, we met a number of hunters belonging 

 to the tribe called Mambowe, who live under Masiko. 

 They had dried flesh of hippopotami, buffaloes, and 

 alligators. They stalk the animals by using the stratagem 

 of a cap made of the skin of a leche's or poku's head, having 

 the horns still attached, and another made so as to repre- 

 sent the upper white part of the crane called jabiru 

 (Mycteru Senegalensis), with its long neck and beak above. 

 With these on, they crawl through the grass ; they can 

 easily put up their heads so far as to see their prey without 

 being recognised until they are within bowshot. They 

 presented me with three fine water-turtles,* one of which, 

 when cooked, had upwards of forty eggs in its body. 

 The shell of the egg is flexible, and it is of the same size 

 at both ends, like those of the alligator. The flesh, and 

 especially the liver, is excellent. The hunters informed 

 us, that when the message inculcating peace among the 

 tribes came to Masiko, the common people were so glad 

 at the prospect of " binding up the spears," that they 

 ran to the river, and bathed and plunged in it for joy. 

 This party had been sent by Masiko to the Makololo for 

 aid to repel their enemy, but, afraid to go thither, had 

 spent the time in hunting. They have a dread of the 

 Makololo, and hence the joy they expressed when peace 

 w T as proclaimed. The Mambowe hunters were much 

 alarmed until my name was mentioned. They then 

 joined our party, and on the following day discovered 

 a hippopotamus dead, wliich they had previously wounded. 

 This was the first feast of flesh my men had enjoyed, 

 for, though the game was wonderfully abundant, I had 

 quite got out of the way of shooting, and missed per- 

 petually. Once I went with the determination of getting 

 so close that I should not miss a zebra. We went along 

 one of the branches that stretch out from the river, in a 



* It is probably a species allied to the Stemoiherus simcatus of Dr. 

 Smith, as it has no disagreeable smell. This variety annually leaves 

 the water with so much regularity for the deposit of its eggs, that the 

 natives decide on the time of sowing their seed by its appearance. 



