never leave it. In the distance they seemed to be upward of sixty. The
human and brute inhabitants understand each other; for when the former
think they ought to avenge the liberties committed on their gardens, the
leaders of the latter come out boldly to give battle. They told us that
the only time in which they can thin them is when the river is full and
part of the island flooded. They then attack them from their canoes. The
comparatively small space to which they have confined themselves shows
how luxuriant the vegetation of this region is; for were they in want
of more pasture, as buffaloes can swim well, and the distance from this
bank to the island is not much more than 200 yards, they might easily
remove hither. The opposite bank is much more distant.

Ranges of hills appear now to run parallel with the Zambesi, and are
about fifteen miles apart. Those on the north approach nearest to the
river. The inhabitants on that side are the Batonga, those on the south
bank are the Banyai. The hills abound in buffaloes, and elephants are
numerous, and many are killed by the people on both banks. They erect
stages on high trees overhanging the paths by which the elephants come,
and then use a large spear with a handle nearly as thick as a man's
wrist, and four or five feet long. When the animal comes beneath they
throw the spear, and if it enters between the ribs above, as the blade
is at least twenty inches long by two broad, the motion of the handle,
as it is aided by knocking against the trees, makes frightful gashes
within, and soon causes death. They kill them also by means of a spear
inserted in a beam of wood, which being suspended on the branch of a
tree by a cord attached to a latch fastened in the path, and intended to
be struck by the animal's foot, leads to the fall of the beam, and, the
spear being poisoned, causes death in a few hours.

We were detained by continuous rains several days at this island. The
clouds rested upon the tops of the hills as they came from the eastward,
and then poured down plenteous showers on the valleys below. As soon as
we could move, Tomba Nyama, the head man of the island, volunteered the
loan of a canoe to cross a small river, called the Chongwe, which we
found to be about fifty or sixty yards broad and flooded. All this part
of the country was well known to Sekwebu, and he informed us that, when
he passed through it as a boy, the inhabitants possessed abundance of
cattle, and