458 
DEAINAGE OF LONDA. 
Chap, XXIII. 
tlie paramount cliief of all the Balonda. The town of Mai is 
pointed out as to the N.N.W. of Cahango^ and thhty-two days or 
two hundred and twenty-fom? miles distant, or about lat. S. 5° 45'. 
The chief town of Luba, another independent chief, is eight days 
farther in the same durection, or lat. S. 4° 501 Judging from the 
appearance of the people who had come for the purposes of 
trade from Mai, those in the north are in quite as uncivilised a 
condition as the Balonda. They are clad in a kind of cloth made 
of the inner bark of a tree. Neither guns nor native traders are 
admitted into the country, the chief of Luba entertaining a dread 
of innovation. If a native trader goes thither, he must dress like 
the common people in Angola, in a loose robe resembling a kilt. 
The chief trades in shells and beads only. His people kill the 
elephants by means of spears, poisoned arrows, and traps. All 
assert that elephants’ tusks from that country, are heavier, and 
of greater length, than any others. 
It is evident, from all the information I could coUect both here 
and elsewhere, that the drainage of Londa falls to the north and 
then runs westward. The countries of Luba and Mai are evidently 
lower than this, and yet this is of no great altitude—probably not 
much more than 3500 feet above the level of the sea. Having 
here received pretty certain information on a point in which I felt 
much interest, namely, that the Kasai is not navigable from the 
coast, owing to the large waterfall near the town of Mai, and that 
no great kingdom exists in the region beyond, between this and 
the equator, I would fain have visited Matiamvo. This seemed a 
very desKable step, as it is good policy as well as right, to acknow¬ 
ledge the sovereign of a country; and I was assured, both by 
Balonda and native traders, that a considerable branch of the 
Zambesi rises in the country east of his town, and flows away to 
the south. The whole of this branch, extending down even to 
where it tmms westward to Masiko, is probably placed too far 
eastwards on the map. It was put domi when I believed 
Matiamvo and Cazembe to be further east than I have since 
seen reason to believe them. All, being derived from native 
testimony, is offered to the reader with diffidence, as needing 
verification by actual explorers. The people of that part, named 
Kanyika and Kanyoka, Hving on its banks, are represented as 
both numerous and friendly, but Matiamvo wiU on no account 
