ng,
proved to be very similar in character to that of the gorge through
which we had passed on the previous day, before encountering Pousa and
his troopers, but, if anything, even more wild, gloomy, and sombre; and
I was not sorry when, about eleven o'clock, we emerged from it into a
kind of basin, hemmed in on all sides by hills. Through the centre of
this basin a narrow road ran, bordering a tiny rivulet which had its
rise somewhere among the adjacent hills; and on either hand the ground
was cultivated, maize, sugar cane, cassava, and fruit of various kinds
being among its products, while the far end of the basin consisted of
pasture land, upon which a herd of quite a thousand cattle were grazing.
There were a few people at work in the field and orchards, pygmies,
like Pousa and his band, but at sight of us they hastily retired, having
been previously ordered--as I subsequently learned--to keep well out of
our way and not intrude their presence upon us. There was no sign of
buildings of any description, but when I questioned Pousa on the subject
he drew my attention to a large number of almost invisible openings in
the rocky sides of the encircling hills, which he told me were the
entrances to the cave dwellings of this extraordinary people; and when I
examined them through my telescope I discovered that the reason why
these openings were so difficult to detect was because they were each
choked with people staring intently out at us as we wound our way
through the valley far below them. My telescope enabled me to discover
that almost every opening, however small, was decorated with more or
less carving, executed in the living rock; and beneath each I also
noticed the little heap of debris which had been thrown out by the owner
when he took possession of his cave and proceeded to enlarge its
interior according to his wants.

We outspanned at the far end of the valley, where the pasture had been
reserved, and spent the night there, having made a sort of forced march
through the valley in order to reach grass for the cattle--that forced
march, by the way, costing me one of my rapidly diminishing team of
oxen.

On the following day we passed another of the extraordinary Bandokolo
villages, and, on the day following that, two more, each being
considerably larger than the preceding one, while the distance between
them steadily decreased, so that on the tenth day after Pousa found us
we passed through no less than five