504 
CLIMATE — DISEASES. 
Chap. XXV. 
enemies the Matebele. The Makololo generally have an aversion 
to the Barotse valley, on account of the fevers which are annually 
engendered in it as the waters dry up. They prefer it only as 
a cattle station, for, though the herds are frequently thinned by 
an epidemic disease {'peripneumonia), they breed so fast, that the 
losses are soon made good. Wherever else the Makololo go, they 
always leave a portion of their stock in the charge of herdsmen 
in that prohfic valley. Some of the younger men objected to 
removal, because the rankness of the grass at the Barotse did not 
allow of their running fast, and because there it never becomes 
cool.” 
Sekeletu at last stood up, and, addressing me, said, “I am 
perfectly satisfied as to the great advantages for trade of the 
path which you have opened, and think that we ought to go to 
the Barotse, in order to make the way from us to Loanda shorter; 
but with whom am I to live there ? If you were coming with us, I 
would remove to-morrow, but now you are going to the white 
man’s country to bring Ma Bobert, and when you return, you 
will find me near to the spot on which you wish to dwell.” I 
had then no idea that any healthy spot existed in the country, 
and thought only of a convenient central situation, adapted for 
intercourse with the adjacent tribes and with the coast, such as 
that near to the confiuence of the Leeba and Leeambye. 
The fever is certainly a drawback to this otherwise important 
missionary field. The great humidity produced by heavy rains 
and inundations, the exuberant vegetation caused by fervid heat 
in rich moist soil, and the prodigious amount of decaying vegetable 
matter, annually exposed after the inundations to the rays of a 
torrid sun, with a fiat surface often covered by forest through 
which the winds cannot pass, aU combine to render the climate 
far from salubrious for any portion of the human family. But 
the fever, thus caused and rendered vu*ulent, is almost the only 
disease prevalent in it. There is no consumption or scrofula, 
and but httle insanity. Smallpox and measles visited the country 
some thirty years ago and cut off many, but they have 
since made no return, although the former has been almost 
constantly in one part or another of the coast. Singularly 
enough, the people used inoculation for this disease; and in 
one village, where they seem to have chosen a malignant case 
