306 
NIGHT-KAINS. 
Chap. XVll. 
Ills country lias been termed Loncla, Lunda, or Lui, by the 
Portuguese. 
It was always difficult to get our guides to move away from a 
place. With the authority of the chief, they felt as comfortable 
as king’s messengers could, and were not disposed to forego the 
pleasure of living at free quarters. My Makololo friends were 
but ill drilled as yet; and since they had never left their own 
country before, except for purposes of plunder, they did not take 
readily to the peaceful system we now meant to follow. They 
either spoke too imperiously to strangers, or, when reproved for 
that, were disposed to follow the dictation of every one we met. 
When Intemese, our guide, refused to stu towards the Leeba on 
the 31st of January, they would make no effort to induce him 
to go; but, having ordered them to get ready, Intemese saw 
the preparations, and soon followed the example. It took us 
about four hours to cross the Leeba, which is considerably 
smaller here than where we left it,—indeed, only about a hundred 
yards wide. It has the same dark mossy hue. The villagers 
lent us canoes to effect our passage ; and, having gone to a vil¬ 
lage about two miles beyond the river, I had the satisfaction of 
getting observations for both longitude and latitude—for the 
former, the distance between Saturn and the Moon, and for the 
latter a meridian altitude of Canopus. Long. 22° 57' E.; 
lat. 12° 6' 6" S. 
These were the only opportunities I had of ascertaining my 
whereabouts in tliis part of Londa. Again and again did I take 
out the instruments, and, just as all was right, the stars would be 
suddenly obscured by clouds. I had never observed so great an 
amount of cloudiness in any part of the south country; and as 
for the rains, I believe that years at Kolobeng would not have 
made my little tent so rotten and thin as one month had done in 
Londa. I never observed in the south, the heavy night and 
early morning rains we had in this country. They often con¬ 
tinued all night, then became heavier about an hour before 
dawn. Or if fair during the night, as day drew nigh, an ex¬ 
tremely heavy, still, pouring rain set in without warning. Five 
out of every six days we had this pouring rain, at or near break 
of day, for months together; and it soon beat my tent so thin, 
that a mist fell tlirough on my face and made everything damp. 
