THE ISLAND HOME OF THE KING 221 
report, would now help us on our journey, and that our troubles, 
so far as quarrelling with the natives was concerned, were 
approaching an end. The well-cultivated soil on the hanks of 
the river also gave promise of liberal corn supplies, and altogether 
we descended on our way to the river in a very happy frame of 
mind. 
We noticed, as we advanced, that the island in the river was 
thickly populated, and was covered from end to end by groups 
of huts, whose conical roofs, peeping out from the thick foliage, 
sent into the still air curling volumes of smoke, that gave an 
unusually civilised appearance to the neighbourhood. 
It was with an undefined feeling of distrust that we learned 
from the natives, on camping under a group of large trees on the 
Okovanga hank, opposite the island, that the king, Debabe, or 
Indala, as I shall henceforth call him, that being his colloquial 
appellation, resided permanently on the island. Our previous 
experience of islanders had not been pleasant ones; and some¬ 
how we associated the idea of cowardly brutality with those 
whose circumstances made it necessary for them to seek seclusion 
in the protected isolation of islands. 
The Okovanga river, here quite four hundred yards wide, 
running between the sandstone boulders that project from the 
bottom in dark, dangerous-looking masses just above our camp, 
assumes a quieter aspect below, where the water, still agitated 
from its contact with the boulders above, whirls along with a good 
four-knot current, and is very deep—over thirty feet, I should 
say. Below this, the river, with the exception of one or two 
cataracts, flows unbroken for about twenty miles, until it spreads 
itself out into the enormous swamps occupying the country for 
several hundred miles to the west and north of Lake Ngami, 
and rivalling, if they do not exceed, those of the Chobe in their 
extent. 
Before we had fairly pitched our camp, a coloured trader 
from the West Coast, of partly Portuguese descent, came to us 
in great excitement at our arrival, very anxious to hear all we 
had to tell. He spoke a little broken English, which, eked out 
