banks of the Zambesi, and see the graceful
antelopes feeding beside the dark buffaloes and sleek elands. Here
hippopotami are known to exist only by their footprints on the banks.
Not one is ever seen to blow or put his head up at all; they have
learned to breathe in silence and keep out of sight. We never heard one
uttering the snorting sound so common on the Zambesi.

We crossed two small streams, the Kanesi and Fombeji, before reaching
Cabango, a village situated on the banks of the Chihombo. The country
was becoming more densely peopled as we proceeded, but it bears no
population compared to what it might easily sustain. Provisions were to
be had in great abundance; a fowl and basket of meal weighing 20 lbs.
were sold for a yard and a half of very inferior cotton cloth, worth
not more than threepence. An idea of the cheapness of food may be formed
from the fact that Captain Neves purchased 380 lbs. of tobacco from the
Bangalas for about two pounds sterling. This, when carried into central
Londa, might purchase seven thousand five hundred fowls, or feed with
meal and fowls seven thousand persons for one day, giving each a fowl
and 5 lbs. of meal. When food is purchased here with either salt or
coarse calico, four persons can be well fed with animal and vegetable
food at the rate of one penny a day. The chief vegetable food is the
manioc and lotsa meal. These contain a very large proportion of starch,
and, when eaten alone for any length of time produce most distressing
heartburn. As we ourselves experienced in coming north, they also cause
a weakness of vision, which occurs in the case of animals fed on pure
gluten or amylaceous matter only. I now discovered that when these
starchy substances are eaten along with a proportion of ground-nuts,
which contain a considerable quantity of oil, no injurious effects
follow.

While on the way to Cabango we saw fresh tracks of elands, the first
we had observed in this country. A poor little slave girl, being ill,
turned aside in the path, and, though we waited all the next day making
search for her, she was lost. She was tall and slender for her age, as
if of too quick growth, and probably, unable to bear the fatigue of the
march, lay down and slept in the forest, then, waking in the dark, went
farther and farther astray. The treatment of the slaves witnessed by
my men certainly did not raise slaveholders in their estimation. Their
usual exclamation was "Ga ba na pelu" (They