534 
PEODUCTIONS OF THE SOIL. 
Chap. XXVI. 
November 2Qth .—As the oxen could only move at night, in con¬ 
sequence of a fear that the buffaloes in tliis quarter might have 
introduced the tsetse, I usually performed the march by day on 
foot, while some of the men brought on the oxen by night. On 
coming to the villages under Marimba, an old man, we crossed the 
Unguesi, a rivulet which,- like the Lekone, runs backward. It 
falls into the Leeambye a little above the commencement of the 
rapids. The stratified gneiss, which is the underlying rock of 
much of this part of the country, dips towards the centre of the 
continent, but the strata are often so much elevated as to appear 
nearly on their edges. Eocks of augitic trap are found in various 
positions on it; the general strike is north and south, but when 
the gneiss was first seen, near to the basalt of the falls, it was 
easterly and westerly, and the dip towards the north, as if the 
eruptive force of the basalt had placed it in that position. 
We passed the remains of a very large town, which, from the 
only evidence of antiquity afforded by ruins in this country, must 
have been inhabited for a long period; the millstones of gneiss, 
trap, and quartz, were worn down, two and a half inches per¬ 
pendicularly. The ivory gravestones soon rot away. Those of 
Mbyara’s father, who must have died not more than a dozen years 
ago, were crumbling into powder; and we found this to be generally 
the case all over the Batoka country. The region around is pretty 
well covered with forest; but there is abundance of open pasturage, 
and as we are ascending m altitude we find the grass to be short, 
and altogether unlike the tangled herbage of the Barotse valley. 
It is remarkable that we now meet with the same trees we saw 
in descending towards the west coast. A kind of stercuha, which 
is the most common tree at Loanda, and tlie baobab, flourish here; 
and the tree called moshuka, which we found near Tala Mungongo, 
was now yielding its fruit, which resembles small apples. The 
people brought it to us in large quantities: it tastes like a pear, 
but has a harsh rind, and four large seeds within. We found pro¬ 
digious quantities of this fruit as we went along. The tree attains 
the height of 15 or 20 feet, and has leaves, hard and glossy, as large 
as one’s hand. The tree itself is never found on the lowlands, but 
is mentioned with approbation at the end of the work of Bowdich. 
]My men almost lived upon the fruit for many days. 
The rains had fallen only partially: in many parts the soil was 
