520 FRIENDLINESS TO WHITE MEN. 



in this healthy region, whither agents oppressed by sick- 

 ness might retire, and which would serve, moreover, as 

 part of a chain of conrmunication between the interior and 

 the coast. The answer does not mean much more than 

 what I know, by other means, to be the case, — that a 

 white man of good sense would be welcome and safe in all 

 these parts. By uprightness, and laying himself out for 

 the good of the people, he would be known all over the 

 country as a benefactor of the race. None desire Christian 

 instruction, for of it they have no idea. But the people 

 are now humbled by the scourgings they have received, 

 and seem to be in a favourable state for the reception of 

 the Gospel. The gradual restoration of their former 

 prosperity in cattle, simultaneously with instruction, 

 would operate beneficially upon their minds. The lan- 

 guage is a dialect of the other negro languages in the great 

 valley ; and as many of the Batoka living under the 

 Makololo understand both it and the Sichuana, mis- 

 sionaries could soon acquire it through that medium. 



Monze had never been visited by any white man, but 

 had seen black native traders, who, he said, came for 

 ivory, not for slaves. He had heard of white men passing 

 far to the east of him to Cazembe, referring, no doubt, to 

 Pereira, I^acerda, and others, who have visited that 

 chief. 



The streams in this part are not perennial ; I did not 

 observe one .suitable for the purpose of irrigation. There 

 is but little wood ; here and there you see large single 

 trees, or small clumps of evergreens, but the abundance 

 of maize and ground-nuts we met with, shows that more 

 rain falls than in the Bechuana country, for there they 

 never attempt to raise maize, except in damp hollows on 

 the banks of rivers. The pasturage is very tine for both 

 cattle and sheep. My own men, who know the land 

 thoroughly, declare that it is all garden-ground together, 

 and that the more tender grains, which require richer 

 soil than the native corn, need no care here. It is seldom 

 stony. 



The men of a village came to our encampment, and, as 

 they followed the Bashukulompo mode of dressing their 

 hair, we had an opportunity of examining it for the first 

 time. A circle of hair at the top of the head, eight inches 

 or more in diameter, is woven into a cone eight or ten 

 inches high, with an obtuse apex, bent, in some cases, a 



