338 
DIFFEEENCE IN COLOUR OF AFRICANS. Chap. XVIII. 
just when it was possible to admit of cattle. Hence the success 
of Katema, Shinte, and Matiamvo with their herds. It would 
not be surprising^ though they know nothing of the circum¬ 
stance ; a tribe on the Zambesi, which I encountered, whose 
country was swarming with tsetse, heHeved that they could not 
keep any cattle because no one loved them well enough to 
give them the medicine of oxenand even the Portuguese at 
Loanda accounted for the death of the cattle brought from the 
interior to the sea-coast, by the prejudicial influence of the sea 
air! One ox which I took down to the sea from the interior, 
died at Loanda, with all the symptoms of the poison injected by 
tsetse, which I saw myself, in a district a hundred miles from 
the coast. 
While at the villages of the Kasabi, we saw no evidence of 
want of food among the people. Our beads were very valuable, 
but cotton cloth would have been still more so; as we tra¬ 
velled along, men, women, and children came running after us, 
Avith meal and fowls for sale, which we would gladly have pur¬ 
chased had we possessed any English manufactures. When 
they heard that we had no cloth, they turned back much dis¬ 
appointed. 
The amount of population in the central parts of the country 
may be called large, only as compared with the Cape Colony or 
the Bechuana country. The cultivated land is as nothing com¬ 
pared with what might be brought under the plough. There 
are flowing streams in abundance, which, were it necessary, 
could be turned to the purpose of irrigation Avith but little 
labour. Miles of fruitful country are now lying absolutely waste, 
for there is not even game to eat off the fine pasturage, and to 
recline under the evergreen shady groves which we are ever 
passing in our progress. The people who inhabit the central 
region are not all quite black in colour. Many incline to that 
of bronze, and others are as light in hue as the Bushmen; who, 
it may be remembered, afford a proof that heat alone does not 
cause blackness, but that heat and moisture combined, do very 
materially deepen the colour. Wherever Ave find people who 
have continued for ages in a hot humid district, they are deep 
black, but to this apparent law there are exceptions, caused by 
the migrations of both tribes and individuals; the Makololo for 
