--Native Traditions--Drainage of
the Great Valley--Native Reports of the Country to the
North--Maps--Moyara's Village--Savage Customs of the Batoka--A Chain
of Trading Stations--Remedy against Tsetse--"The Well of Joy"--First
Traces of Trade with Europeans--Knocking out the front Teeth--Facetious
Explanation--Degradation of the Batoka--Description of the Traveling
Party--Cross the Unguesi--Geological Formation--Ruins of a large Town--
Productions of the Soil similar to those in Angola--Abundance of Fruit.

On the 3d of November we bade adieu to our friends at Linyanti,
accompanied by Sekeletu and about 200 followers. We were all fed at his
expense, and he took cattle for this purpose from every station we came
to. The principal men of the Makololo, Lebeole, Ntlarie, Nkwatlele,
etc., were also of the party. We passed through the patch of the tsetse,
which exists between Linyanti and Sesheke, by night. The majority of the
company went on by daylight, in order to prepare our beds. Sekeletu and
I, with about forty young men, waited outside the tsetse till dark. We
then went forward, and about ten o'clock it became so pitchy dark that
both horses and men were completely blinded. The lightning spread over
the sky, forming eight or ten branches at a time, in shape exactly like
those of a tree. This, with great volumes of sheet-lightning, enabled
us at times to see the whole country. The intervals between the flashes
were so densely dark as to convey the idea of stone-blindness. The
horses trembled, cried out, and turned round, as if searching for each
other, and every new flash revealed the men taking different directions,
laughing, and stumbling against each other. The thunder was of that
tremendously loud kind only to be heard in tropical countries, and which
friends from India have assured me is louder in Africa than any they
have ever heard elsewhere. Then came a pelting rain, which completed
our confusion. After the intense heat of the day, we soon felt miserably
cold, and turned aside to a fire we saw in the distance. This had been
made by some people on their march; for this path is seldom without
numbers of strangers passing to and from the capital. My clothing having
gone on, I lay down on the cold ground, expecting to spend a miserable
night; but Sekeletu kindly covered me with his own blanket, and lay
uncovered himself. I was much affected by this act of genuine kindness.
If such men must perish by the advance of