od, and Mosogo's wife gave her a sufficient
quantity. Proceeding to another village standing on the spot now
occupied by the water, she preferred the same demand, and was not only
refused, but, when she uttered a threat for their niggardliness, was
taunted with the question, "What could she do though she were thus
treated?" In order to show what she could do, she began a song, in slow
time, and uttered her own name, Monenga-wo-o. As she prolonged the
last note, the village, people, fowls, and dogs sank into the space now
called Dilolo. When Kasimakate, the head man of this village, came home
and found out the catastrophe, he cast himself into the lake, and is
supposed to be in it still. The name is derived from "ilolo", despair,
because this man gave up all hope when his family was destroyed. Monenga
was put to death. This may be a faint tradition of the Deluge, and it is
remarkable as the only one I have met with in this country.

Heavy rains prevented us from crossing the plain in front (N.N.W.) in
one day, and the constant wading among the grass hurt the feet of the
men. There is a footpath all the way across, but as this is worn down
beneath the level of the rest of the plain, it is necessarily the
deepest portion, and the men, avoiding it, make a new walk by its side.
A path, however narrow, is a great convenience, as any one who has
traveled on foot in Africa will admit. The virtual want of it here
caused us to make slow and painful progress.

Ants surely are wiser than some men, for they learn by experience. They
have established themselves even on these plains, where water stands so
long annually as to allow the lotus, and other aqueous plants, to come
to maturity. When all the ant horizon is submerged a foot deep, they
manage to exist by ascending to little houses built of black tenacious
loam on stalks of grass, and placed higher than the line of inundation.
This must have been the result of experience; for, if they had waited
till the water actually invaded their terrestrial habitations, they
would not have been able to procure materials for their aerial quarters,
unless they dived down to the bottom for every mouthful of clay. Some of
these upper chambers are about the size of a bean, and others as large
as a man's thumb. They must have built in anticipation, and if so, let
us humbly hope that the sufferers by the late inundations in France may
be possessed of as much common sense as the little black ants of