i882.] 
Among the Barotse. 
6s 
seek to shelter ourselves under a few bushes. Later on, the men 
went down to the sunken canoe, and as the water was not deep, 
they succeeded in removing my goods without much difficulty. 
Their plan of getting the water out of the canoe was simple but 
ingenious. They seized the canoe by the bow, jerked it forward, 
and thus set the water within it in motion ; then they pushed the 
canoe back, and the water flowed out. By repeating this process 
the canoe was emptied of perhaps a ton of water in a few minutes. 
Heavy rains now set in. It was some days before I could get 
my blankets dried after their soaking in the river j and thankful 
I was to reach the town of Nalolo, who is a sister of the chief 
Liwanika. She did her best to make us comfortable, and supplied 
me with food. My men built a long, low shed with reeds and 
grass, and kindled large fires, and with sunshine for the next few 
days I got my calico, clothes, and other things dried. The few 
books I had were more or less destroyed. When at last we had 
got things fairly comfortable again, and were hoping to start 
next day, heavy dark clouds arose from the south, which in- 
creased so quickly that in a short time the whole southern sky 
was inky-black. My men ran to the river, and drew the boats to 
shelter on the bank, cut a little extra grass and laid it on our 
shed, and as it faced the north we thought it might afford 
us sufficient shelter. The hurricane broke mercilessly over our 
little camp, and with such force as to carry all our shed and 
carefully-made little huts into the river, leaving me and my 
newly-spread bed and a few precious bundles exposed to the 
torrents of rain that poured down for the first part of the night, 
and extinguished all our fires, leaving us in a more desolate 
and forlorn condition than before. A little sunshine, however, 
next day enabled me to dry things somewhat, and off we 
started, making our way through a flat, grassy country. My 
boats were repeatedly chased by hippopotami. Along the 
banks of the river we saw large herds of cattle grazing. The 
population of the Barotse valley, though considerable, is very 
much scattered; but the people are all, more or less, breeders 
of cattle. 
ARRIVAL AT THE CAPITAL. 
Lealui, Dece?nber 19/^, 1882. — Reached the town of Liwanika. 
The king sent a horse to meet me, and a company of young men 
F 
