356 
DESERTED BY GUIDES. 
Chap. XIX. 
that this stream is so low during most of the year as to be 
easily fordable, it probably derives its name from the use made 
of the bark canoes when it is in flood. We now felt the loss of 
our pontoon, for the people to whom the canoe belonged, made 
us pay once when we began to cross, then a second time when 
half of us were over, and a third time when all were over but 
my principal man Pitsane and myself. Loyanke took off his 
cloth and paid my passage with it. The Makololo always 
ferried their visitors over rivers without pay, and now began to 
remark that they must in future fleece the Mambari as these 
Cliiboque had done to us; they had all been loud in condemna¬ 
tion of the meanness, and when I asked if they could descend to 
be equally mean, I was answered that they would only do it in 
revenge. They Kke to have a plausible excuse for meanness. 
Next morning our guides went only about a mile, and then told 
us they would return home. I expected this when paying them 
beforehand, in accordance with the entreaties of the Makololo, 
who are rather ignorant of the world. Very energetic remon¬ 
strances were addressed to the guides, but they slipped off one by 
one in the thick forest through wliich we were passing, and I 
was glad to hear my companions coming to the conclusion, that, 
as we were now in parts visited by traders, we did not require 
the guides, whose chief use had been to prevent misapprehension 
of our objects in the minds of the villagers. The country was 
somewhat more undulating now than it had been, and several 
fine small streams flowed in deep woody deUs. The trees are very 
tall and straight, and the forests gloomy and damp; the ground in 
these solitudes is quite covered with yellow and brown mosses, and 
light-coloured lichens clothe all the trees. The soil is extremely 
fertile, being generally a black loam covered with a thick crop of 
tall grasses. We passed several vfllages too. The headman of 
a large one scolded us well for passing, when he intended to 
give us food. Where slave-traders have been in the habit of 
coming, they present food, then demand three or four times its 
value as a custom. We were now rather glad to get past 
villages without intercourse with the inhabitants. 
We were travelling W.N.W., and aU the rivulets we here 
crossed had a northerly course, and were reported to fall into the 
Kasai or Loke; most of them had the pecuhar boggy banks of 
ra 
