220 
GARDENS—GAME. 
Chap. XII. 
order to pack up tlie instruments as soon as I had finished; there 
was a large halo, about 20° in diameter, round the sun; thinking 
that the humidity of the atmosphere, which this indicated, might 
betoken rain, I asked him if his experience did not lead him to 
the same view. “ 0 no,” replied he; it is the Barimo (gods, or 
departed spirits), who have called a picho; don’t you see they 
have the Lord (sun) in the centre ?” 
Wliile still at Naliele I walked out to Katongo (lat. 15° 16' 33"), 
on the ridge which bounds the valley of the Barotse in that 
direction, and found it covered with trees. It is only the coim^ 
mencement of the lands which are never inundated; their gentle 
rise from the dead level of the valley much resembles the edge 
of the Desert in the valley of the Nile. But here the Banyeti 
have fine gardens, and raise great quantities of maize, millet, and 
native corn {Holcus sorghum), of large grain and beautifully white. 
They grow, also, yams, sugar-cane, the Egyptian arum, sweet 
potato {Convolulus hatates), two kinds of manioc or cassava (Ja- 
tropha manihot and J. utilissima, a variety containing scarcely 
any poison), besides pumpkins, melons, beans, and gTOund-nuts. 
These, with plenty of fish in the river, its branches and lagoons, 
wild fruits and water-fowl, always make the people refer to the 
Barotse as the land of plenty. The scene from the ridge, on 
looking back, was beautiful. One cannot see the western side 
of the valley in a cloudy day, such as that was when we visited 
the stockade, but we could see the great river glancing out at 
different points, and fine large herds of cattle quietly gTazing on 
the green succulent herbage, among numbers of cattle-stations 
and villages which are dotted over the landscape. Leches in 
hundreds fed securely beside them, for they have learned only to 
keep out of bow-shot, or two hundred yards. When guns come 
into a country the animals soon learn their longer range, and 
begin to run at a distance of five hundred yards. 
I imaguied the slight elevation (Katongo) might be healthy, 
but was mformed that no part of tliis region is exempt from fever. 
When the w^aters begin to retire from this valley, such masses of 
decayed vegetation and mud are exposed to the torrid sun, that 
even the natives suffer severely from attacks of fever. The grass 
is so rank in its gTowth, that one cannot see the black alluvial 
soil of the bottom of this periodical lake. Even when the grass 
