322 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
princes of their own, Kukonganena, Ivukalelwa, and 
Molombe. 
Our experience at night proved that the Mabundas 
had not exaggerated much in what they told us about 
the lions. After sunset we heard their chorus begin, and 
it did not cease till dawn. I should not think the animals 
were more than 150 yards away from us. Up in the 
little village the people had to be on the watch to keep 
them at bay, and kept on shouting and beating a drum, 
while nearly every inclosure was illumined by a fire. 
My own boatmen sat up, spear in hand, nearly all night, 
and weird enough their shadows were as they fell upon 
the fence. No lions, however, ventured to attack us. 
For the next two days I was worse rather than better, 
and vain were my efforts to amuse myself with either my 
diary or my sketch-book. My disorder was aggravated 
by the ungenial weather, and even in the most violent 
fits of fever I was conscious of a feeling of shivering under 
the keen north-east blast. I endeavoured to keep up my 
spirits, but writing, which was my sole resource, was a 
painful trial to me, and the lines danced before my 
eyes. 
I could not bear the thought of going back to Sesheke, 
and determined to make a vigorous endeavour once again 
to go ahead. Accordingly on the 8th we started, but the 
exertion was too much for me, and in the evening I had 
to be carried ashore. Scarcely had I been laid down in a 
grass hut left by some previous passengers, when I was 
seized with such an attack of sickness and diarrhoea, 
that I really began to fear that I should not live till 
morning. 
Except at the Victoria Falls, the part of the river 
over which we had been passing was in itself the most 
interesting that I had yet seen. We had crossed forty- 
two rapids, and had now come to the most southerly of 
the Barotse cataracts, here about 1000 feet wide. I was 
removed on the following morning to a more roomy hut 
that had been prepared for Queen Moquai, and in which 
she had waited my arrival; imagining, however, that I 
had turned back, she had proceeded on her way, but when 
