KINDNESS OE THE PEOPLE. 459 



path for us, and we shall have sleep." Strangers came 

 nocking from a distance, and seldom empty-handed. 

 Their presents I distributed amongst my men. 



Our progress down the Barotse valley was just like 

 this. Every village gave us an ox, and sometimes two. 

 The people were wonderfully kind. I felt, and still feel, 

 most deeply grateful, and tried to benefit them in the 

 only way I could, by imparting the knowledge of that 

 Saviour, who can comfort and supply them in the time 

 of need, and my prayer is, that he may send his good 

 Spirit to instruct them and lead them into his kingdom. 

 Even now, I earnestly long to return, and make some 

 recompense to them for their kindness. In passing them 

 on our way to the north, their liberality might have been 

 supposed to be influenced by the hope of repayment on 

 our return, for the white man's land is imagined to be the 

 source of every ornament they prize most. But though 

 we set out from Loanda with a considerable quantity 

 of "goods, hoping both to pay our way through the stingy 

 Chibocnie, and to make presents to the kind Balonda, 

 and still more generous Makololo, the many delays caused 

 by sickness made us expend all my stock, and all the goods 

 my men procured by their own labour at I^oanda, and 

 we returned to the Makololo as poor as when we set out. 

 Yet no distrust was shown, and my poverty did not lessen 

 my influence. They saw that I had been exerting myself 

 for their benefit alone, and even my men remarked, 

 '■ Though we return as poor as we went, we have not 

 gone in vain." They began immediately to collect tusks 

 of hippopotami and other ivory for a second journey. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



On the 31st of July we parted with our land Libonta 

 friends. We planted some of our palm-tree seeds in 

 different villages of this valley. They began to sprout 

 even while we were there, but, unfortunately, they were 

 always destroyed by the mice which swarm in every hut. 



At Chitlane's village, we collected the young of a colony 

 of the linkololo (Anastomus lamalligevus), a black, long- 

 legged bird, somewhat larger than a crow, which lives 

 on shellfish (Ampullaria), and breeds in society at certain 



