round and round before the fire. My men laughed at the idea of being
frightened by rivers. "We can all swim: who carried the white man across
the river but himself?" I felt proud of their praise.

SATURDAY, 4TH MARCH. Came to the outskirts of the territory of the
Chiboque. We crossed the Konde and Kaluze rivulets. The former is a
deep, small stream with a bridge, the latter insignificant; the valleys
in which these rivulets run are beautifully fertile. My companions
are continually lamenting over the uncultivated vales in such words as
these: "What a fine country for cattle! My heart is sore to see such
fruitful valleys for corn lying waste." At the time these words were
put down I had come to the belief that the reason why the inhabitants of
this fine country possess no herds of cattle was owing to the despotic
sway of their chiefs, and that the common people would not be allowed to
keep any domestic animals, even supposing they could acquire them; but
on musing on the subject since, I have been led to the conjecture that
the rich, fertile country of Londa must formerly have been infested by
the tsetse, but that, as the people killed off the game on which, in the
absence of man, the tsetse must subsist, the insect was starved out of
the country. It is now found only where wild animals abound, and the
Balonda, by the possession of guns, having cleared most of the country
of all the large game, we may have happened to come just when it was
possible to admit of cattle. Hence the success of Katema, Shinte, and
Matiamvo with their herds. It would not be surprising, though they
know nothing of the circumstance; a tribe on the Zambesi, which I
encountered, whose country was swarming with tsetse, believed that they
could not keep any cattle, because "no one loved them well enough to
give them the medicine of oxen;" and even the Portuguese at Loanda
accounted for the death of the cattle brought from the interior to the
sea-coast by the prejudicial influence of the sea air! One ox, which
I took down to the sea from the interior, died at Loanda, with all
the symptoms of the poison injected by tsetse, which I saw myself in a
district a hundred miles from the coast.

While at the villages of the Kasabi we saw no evidences of want of food
among the people. Our beads were very valuable, but cotton cloth would
have been still more so; as we traveled along, men, women, and children
came running after us, with meal and fowls for sale,