376 
HILL KASALA. 
Chap. XIX. 
them. The food is very cheap, but it was generally made dear 
enough, until I refused to allow him to come near the place 
where we were bargaining. But he took us safely down to 
Ambaca, and I was glad to see, on my return to Cassange, that 
he was promoted to be sergeant-major of a company of militia. 
Having left Cassange on the 21st, we passed across the re¬ 
maining portion of this excessively fertile valley to the foot of 
Tala Mungongo. We crossed a fine little stream called the Lui 
on the 22nd, and another named the Luare on the 24th, then 
slept at the bottom of the height, which is from a thousand to 
fifteen hundred feet. The clouds came floating along the valley, 
and broke against the sides of the ascent, and the dripping rain 
on the tall grass, made the slaps in the face it gave, when the 
hand or a stick was not held up before it, anything but agreeable. 
This edge of the valley is exactly Hke the other; jutting spurs 
and defiles give the red ascent the same serrated appearance as 
that which we descended from the highlands of Londa. The 
whole of tliis vast valley has been removed by denudation, for 
pieces of the plateau which once fiUed the now vacant space 
stand in it, and present the same structure of red horizontal 
strata of equal altitudes with those of the acclivity which we 
are now about to ascend. One of these insulated masses, named 
Kasala, bore E.S.E. from the place where we made our exit 
from the valley, and about ten miles W.S.W. from the village 
of Cassange. It is remarkable for its perpendicular sides; even 
the natives find it extremely difficult, almost impossible, to reach 
its summit, though there is the temptation of marabou-nests and 
feathers, which are liighly prized. There is a small lake reported 
to exist on its southern end, and, during the rainy season, a sort 
of natural moat is formed around the bottom. What an acqui¬ 
sition this would have been in feudal times in England! ^here 
is land sufficient for considerable cultivation on the top, with 
almost perpendicular sides more than a thousand feet in height. 
We had not yet got a clear idea of the nature of Tala Mun¬ 
gongo. A gentleman at Cassange described it as a range of very 
high mountains, which it would take four hours to climb; so, 
though the rain and grass had wetted us miserably, and I was suf¬ 
fering from an attack of fever got while observing by night for the 
position of Cassange, I eagerly commenced the ascent. The path 
