aving traveled
through a beautifully undulating pastoral country. To the south, and
a little east of this, stands the hill Taba Cheu, or "White Mountain",
from a mass of white rock, probably dolomite, on its top. But none
of the hills are of any great altitude. When I heard this mountain
described at Linyanti I thought the glistening substance might be snow,
and my informants were so loud in their assertions of its exceeding
great altitude that I was startled with the idea; but I had quite
forgotten that I was speaking with men who had been accustomed to
plains, and knew nothing of very high mountains. When I inquired what
the white substance was, they at once replied it was a kind of rock. I
expected to have come nearer to it, and would have ascended it; but
we were led to go to the northeast. Yet I doubt not that the native
testimony of its being stone is true. The distant ranges of hills which
line the banks of the Zambesi on the southeast, and landscapes which
permit the eye to range over twenty or thirty miles at a time, with
short grass under our feet, were especially refreshing sights to those
who had traveled for months together over the confined views of the flat
forest, and among the tangled rank herbage of the great valley.

The Mozuma, or River of Dila, was the first water-course which indicated
that we were now on the slopes toward the eastern coast. It contained no
flowing water, but revealed in its banks what gave me great pleasure
at the time--pieces of lignite, possibly indicating the existence of a
mineral, namely, coal, the want of which in the central country I had
always deplored. Again and again we came to the ruins of large towns,
containing the only hieroglyphics of this country, worn mill-stones,
with the round ball of quartz with which the grinding was effected.
Great numbers of these balls were lying about, showing that the
depopulation had been the result of war; for, had the people removed in
peace, they would have taken the balls with them.

At the River of Dila we saw the spot where Sebituane lived, and Sekwebu
pointed out the heaps of bones of cattle which the Makololo had been
obliged to slaughter after performing a march with great herds captured
from the Batoka through a patch of the fatal tsetse. When Sebituane
saw the symptoms of the poison, he gave orders to his people to eat the
cattle. He still had vast numbers; and when the Matebele, crossing the
Zambesi opposite this part, came