sembe, so this was an
additional argument against my going that way.

Some Banyamwezi report a tribe--the Bonyolo--that extract the upper
front teeth, like Batoka; they are near Loanda, and Lake Chipokola is
there, probably the same as Kinkonza. Feeling my way. All the trees
are now pushing out fresh young leaves of different colours: winds
S.E. Clouds of upper stratum N.W.

_29th August, 1868._--Kaskas began to-day hot and sultry. This will
continue till rains fall. Rumours of wars perpetual and near; and one
circumstantial account of an attack made by the Bause. That again
contradicted. _(31st August, 1868.)_ Rain began here this evening,
quite remarkable and exceptional, as it precedes the rains generally
off the watershed by two months at least: it was a thunder shower,
and it and another on the evening of the second were quite partial.

* * * * *

[As we shall see, he takes advantage of his late experience to work
out an elaborate treatise on the climate of this region, which is
exceedingly important, bearing, as it does, upon the question of the
periodical floods on the rivers which drain the enormous cistern-lakes
of Central Africa.]

* * * * *

The notion of a rainy zone, in which the clouds deposit their
treasures in perpetual showers, has received no confirmation from my
observations. In 1866-7, the rainfall was 42 inches. In 1867-8, it
amounted to 53 inches: this is nearly the same as falls in the same
latitudes on the West Coast. In both years the rains ceased entirely
in May, and with the exception of two partial thunder showers on the
middle of the watershed, no rain fell till the middle and end of
October, and then, even in November, it was partial, and limited to
small patches of country; but scarcely a day passed between October
and May without a good deal of thunder. When the thunder began to roll
or rumble, that was taken by the natives as an indication of the near
cessation of the rains. The middle of the watershed is the most humid
part: one sees the great humidity of its climate at once in the trees,
old and young, being thickly covered with lichens; some flat, on the
trunks and branches; others long and thready, like the beards of old
men waving in the wind. Large orchids on the trees in company with the
profusion of lichens are seen nowhere else, except in the mangrove
swamps of the sea-coast.

I cannot account for the great h