st laid out that
Livingstone had seen in Central Africa, on a sort of throne covered with
leopard-skin. The _kotla_, or place of audience, was one hundred yards
square. Though in the sweating stage of an intermittent fever,
Livingstone held his own with the chief, gave him an ox as "his mouth
was bitter from want of flesh," advised him to open a trade in cattle
with the Makololo, and to put down the slave-trade; and, after spending
more than a week with him, left amid the warmest professions of
friendship. Shinte found him a guide of his tribe, Intemese by name, who
was to stay by them till they reached the sea, and at a last interview
hung round his neck a conical shell of such value that two of them, so
his men assured him, would purchase a slave.

Soon they were out of Shinte's territory, and Intemese became the plague
of the party, though unluckily they could not dispense with him
altogether in crossing the great flooded plains of Lebala. They camped
at night on mounds, where they had to trench round each hut and use the
earth to raise their sleeping places. "My men turned out to work most
willingly, and I could not but contrast their conduct with that of
Intemese, who was thoroughly imbued with the slave spirit, and lied on
all occasions to save himself trouble." He lost the pontoon, too,
thereby adding greatly to their troubles.

They now came to the territory of another great chief, Katema, who
received them hospitably, sending food and giving them solemn audience
in his kotla surrounded by his tribe. A tall man of forty, dressed in a
snuff-brown coat with a broad band of tinsel down the arms, and a helmet
of beads and feathers. He carried a large fan with charms attached,
which he waved constantly during the audience, often laughing
heartily--"a good sign, for a man who shakes his sides with mirth is
seldom difficult to deal with."

"I am the great Moene Katema!" was his address; "I and my fathers have
always lived here, and there is my father's house. I never killed any of
the traders; they all come to me. I am the great Moene Katema, of whom
you have heard." On hearing Livingstone's object, he gave him three
guides, who would take him by a northern route, along which no traders
had passed, to avoid the plains, impassable from the floods. He accepted
Livingstone's present of a shawl, a razor, some beads and buttons, and a
powder-horn graciously, laughing at his apologies for its smallness, and
asking him to