Chap. XVIII. 
UNCULTIVATED VALLEYS. 
337 
Wlieii I stood upj it was most gratifying to see them all 
struggling towards me. Some had leaped off the bridge^ and 
allowed their cloaks to float down the stream. Part of my 
goods^ abandoned in the hiirry^ were brought up from the 
bottom after I was safe. Great was the pleasure expressed when 
they found that I could swim like themselves^ without the aid 
of a tailj and I did, and do feel grateful to these poor heathens 
for the promptitude with which they dashed in to save, as they 
thought, my life. I found my clothes cumbersome in the water; 
they could swim quicker from being naked. They swim like 
dogs, not frog-fashion, as we do. 
In the evening we crossed the small rivulet Lozeze, and came 
to some villages of the Kasabi, from whom we got some manioc 
in exchange for beads. They tried to frighten us by telling of 
the deep rivers we should have to cross in our way. I was 
drying my clothes by turning myself round and round before the 
fire. My men laughed at the idea of being frightened by rivers. 
We can all swim: who carried the white man across the river 
but himself? ” I felt proud of their praise. 
Saturday, A.tJi JfhrcA.-^Came to the outskirts of the territory 
of the Chiboque. We crossed the Konde and Kaluze rivulets. 
The former is a deep small stream with a bridge, the latter in¬ 
significant ; the valleys in which these rivulets run are beautifully 
fertile. My companions are continually lamenting over the un¬ 
cultivated vales, in such words as these,—What a fine country 
for cattle! My heart is sore to see such fruitful valleys for corn 
lying waste! ” At the time these words were put down, I had 
come to the belief that the reason why the inhabitants of this 
fine country possess no herds of cattle, was owing to the despotic 
sway of their chiefs, and that the common people would not be 
allowed to keep any domestic animals, even supposing they 
could acquire them ; but on musing on the subject since, I have 
been led to the conjecture that the rich fertile country of Londa, 
must formerly have been infested by the tsetse, but that, as the 
people killed off the game on which, in the absence of man, the 
tsetse must subsist, the insect was starved out of the country. 
It is now found only where wild animals abound, and the Ba- 
londa, by the possession of guns, having cleared most of the 
country of all the large game, we may have happened to come 
