490 
WATEK-TURTLES. 
Chap. XXIV. 
He went off honestly, with the exception of taking a fine tari ” 
skin given me by Nyamoana, but he left a parcel of gun-fiints 
which he had carried for me all the way from Loanda. I re¬ 
gretted parting with him thus, and sent notice to him that he 
need not have run away, and if he wished to come to Sekeletu 
again, he would be welcome. We subsequently met a large party 
of Barotse fleeing in the same direction, but when I represented 
to them that there was a probability of theh being sold as slaves 
in Londa, and none in the country of Sekeletu, they concluded 
to return. The grievance which the Barotse most feel, is being 
obliged to live with Sekeletu at Linyanti, where there is neither 
fish nor fowl, nor any other kind of food, equal in quantity to 
what they enjoy in their own fat valley. 
A short distance below the confluence of the Leeba and Lee- 
ambye, we met a number of hunters belonging to the tribe called 
Mambowe, who live under Masiko. They had dried flesh of 
hippopotami, buffaloes, and alligators. They stalk the animals 
by using the stratagem of a cap made of the skin of a leche’s or 
polm’s head, having the horns stfll attached, and another made 
so as to represent the upper white part of the crane called jabiru 
{Mycteru Senegalensis), with its long neck and beak above. With 
these on, they crawl through the grass; they can easily put up 
their heads so far as to see their prey without being recognised 
until they are within bowshot. They presented me with tliree 
fine water-tmdles,* one of which, when cooked, had upwards of 
forty eggs in its body. The shell of the egg is flexible, and it is 
of the same size at both ends, like those of the alligator. The 
flesh, and especially the liver, is excellent. The hunters informed 
us, that when the message inculcating peace among the tribes 
came to Masiko, the common people were so glad at the prospect 
of ‘^bmding up the spears,” that they ran to the river, and 
bathed and plunged in it for joy. This party had been sent by 
Masiko to the Makololo for aid to repel their enemy, but, afraid 
to go thither, had spent the time in huntmg. They have a dread 
of the Makololo, and hence the joy they expressed when peace was 
* It is probably a species allied to the Sfernotherus sinuatus of Dr. Smith, 
as it has no disagreeable smell. This variety annually leaves the water with 
so much regularity for the deposit of its eggs, that the natives decide on the 
time of sowing their seed by its appearance. 
