68 
Seven Years in Central Africa. [March, 
people are situated on both banks of the river. They are 
expert hunters of the hippopotami and other animals, and 
proficient in the manufacture of articles of wood and iron. 
" From the bend of the river up to the north, called Katima- 
molelo, the bed is rocky, and the stream runs fast, forming a 
succession of rapids and cataracts, which prevent continuous 
navigation when the water is low. The rapids are not visible 
when the river is full; but the cataracts of Nyambe, Bombwe, 
and Kale must always be dangerous. The fall at each of these 
is between four and six feet. But that at Gonye presents a 
much more serious obstacle, being about thirty feet. 
"When we came to about i6° i6' S.* latitude the high, wooded 
banks left the river, and no more tsetse appeared. Viewed from 
the flat, reedy basin in which the river then flowed, the banks 
seemed prolonged into ridges of the same wooded character, two 
or three hundred feet high, and stretched away to the N.N.E. and 
N.N.W. until they were twenty or thirty miles apart. The 
intervening space, nearly one hundred miles in length, with the 
Zambesi winding gently near the middle, is the true Barotse 
Valley. It bears a close resemblance to the valley of the Nile, 
and is inundated annually, not by rains, but by the Zambesi. 
The villages of the Barotse are built on mounds, and during the 
inundation the whole valley assumes the appearance of a large 
lake, with the villages on the mounds like islands, just as occurs 
in Egypt with the villages of the Egyptians. 
" The great valley is not put to a tithe of the use it might be. 
It is covered with coarse, succulent grasses, which aflbrd ample 
pasturage for large herds of cattle. These thrive wonderfully, 
and give milk copiously to their owners. When the valley is 
flooded the cattle are compelled to leave it and go to the higher 
lands, where they fall off in condition. Their return is a time of 
joy. There are no large towns, the mounds on which the towns 
and villages are built being all small, and the people require to 
live apart on account of their cattle. 
" When the river is compressed among the high, rocky banks 
near Gonye, it rises sixty feet. 
"I imagined that the slight elevation [Katongo] might be 
healthy, but was informed that no part of this region is exempt 
from fever. When the waters begin to retire from this valley 
