The March to Banza Nkulu. 
257 
Banza Vivi, our first destination, perching high on 
the farther side of the blue depression, bore due 
north. We then struck the roughest of descents, 
down broken outcrops and chines of granite—no 
wonder that the women have such grand legs. 
This led us into a dark green depression where 
lay Banza Chinsavu, the abode of King Nelongo. 
Our course had been three miles to the north- 
north-east. 
Nothing can be more charming than the site, 
a small horseshoe valley, formed by a Wady or 
Fiumara, upon whose raised left bank stands the 
settlement, sheltered by palms, plantations, and 
wild figs. Eastward is a slope of bare rock 
polished by the rain-torrents; westward rise the 
grassy hills variegated with bush and boulder. 
We next crossed a rocky divide to the north and 
found a second basin also fertilized by its own 
stream; here the cactus and aloes, the vegetation 
of the desert, contrasted with half-a-dozen shades 
of green, the banana, the sycamore, the egg-plant, 
the sweet potato, the wild pepper, and the grass, 
whose colours were paling, but not so rapidly as 
in the lower lands. 
We dismounted in state from our tipoias at 
the verandah of an empty house, where a chair 
had been placed; and we prepared for the usual de¬ 
lay and display. The guides will not leave these 
villages unvisited lest a “war” result; all the chiefs 
11. s 
