THE BA IIOTSE COUNTRY. 
555 
wliat the rains are in tropical Africa, if it be also 
remembered that the inundation regularly attains its 
maximum at the end of eight days. 
The Luina people, who in great part reside in the 
plain, repair to the mountainous region during the 
inundations. On the retirement of the waters they 
return to reoccupy the villages abandoned during the 
inclement season, and cover the country with their 
enormous herds, which, to say truth, do not find a very 
luxuriant pasturage at any portion of the year, as the 
meadows are, for the most part, formed of rushes and 
canes, the most abundant species being the Calama- 
grostis arenaria. Cultivation is carried on more upon 
the right than on the left bank of the Zambesi, and 
always near the rising ground. The inundation leaves 
upon the extensive plain an immense number of small 
lakes, wdiich form the beds of aquatic vegetation, and 
become so many sources of miasma and swamp-fevers, 
so that there are periods in the year when the 
aborigines themselves suffer greatly from zymotic 
diseases. The lakes abound in fish, and are the homes 
of multitudes of frogs. It is from these lakes, also, 
that the natives draw their supplies of drinking-water, 
but it is necessary to explain that they only drink it 
when converted into capata. 
The Luinas are no great tillers of the land, but they 
are great rearers of cattle. Their herds constitute their 
chief wealth, and in the milk of their cows they find 
their principal nourishment. A Luina’s property may 
be said to consist of cows and women. The basis of 
their food is milk, either fresh or curdled, and sweet- 
potatoes. Maize-flour is used to make capata , mixed 
with the flour of massambala, the chief article of culti¬ 
vation in that country. The people work in iron, and 
all their arms and tools are manufactured at home. 
They use no knives, and one cannot fail to admire their 
wood-carvings, more especially on considering that they 
are untouched by a knife, but are the result of what in 
our eyes would be most unmanageable implements. In 
the Lui they employ but two ; the rough work is done 
