MARCH 6TH. We were informed that the people on the west of the Chiboque of Njambi were familiar with the visits of slave-traders; and it was the opinion of our guides from Kangenke that so many of my companions would be demanded from me, in the same manner as the people of Njambi had done, that I should reach the coast without a single attendant; I therefore resolved to alter our course and strike away to the N.N.E., in the hope that at some point farther north I might find an exit to the Portuguese settlement of Cassange. We proceeded at first due north, with the Kasabi villages on our right, and the Kasau on our left. During the first twenty miles we crossed many small, but now swollen streams, having the usual boggy banks, and wherever the water had stood for any length of time it was discolored with rust of iron. We saw a "nakong" antelope one day, a rare sight in this quarter; and many new and pretty flowers adorned the valleys. We could observe the difference in the seasons in our northing in company with the sun. Summer was now nearly over at Kuruman, and far advanced at Linyanti, but here we were in the middle of it; fruits, which we had eaten ripe on the Leeambye, were here quite green; but we were coming into the region where the inhabitants are favored with two rainy seasons and two crops, i.e., when the sun is going south, and when he comes back on his way to the north, as was the case at present.
On the 8th, one of the men had left an ounce or two of powder at our sleeping-place, and went back several miles for it. My clothing being wet from crossing a stream, I was compelled to wait for him; had I been moving in the sun I should have felt no harm, but the inaction led to a violent fit of fever. The continuance of this attack was a source of much regret, for we went on next day to a small rivulet called Chihune, in a lovely valley, and had, for a wonder, a clear sky and a clear moon; but such was the confusion produced in my mind by the state of my body, that I could scarcely manage, after some hours' trial, to get a lunar observation in which I could repose confidence. The Chihune flows into the Longe, and that into the Chihombo, a feeder of the Kasai. Those who know the difficulties of taking altitudes, times, and distances, and committing all of them to paper, will sympathize with me in this and many similar instances. While at Chihune, the men of a village brought wax for sale, and, on finding that we wished honey, went off and soon brought a hive. All the bees in the country are in possession of the natives, for they place hives sufficient for them all. After having ascertained this, we never attended the call of the honey-guide, for we were sure it would only lead us to a hive which we had no right to touch. The bird continues its habit of inviting attention to the honey, though its services in this district are never actually needed. My Makololo lamented that they never knew before that wax could be sold for any thing of value.
As we traverse a succession of open lawns and deep forests, it is interesting to observe something like instinct developed even in trees. One which, when cut, emits a milky juice, if met with on the open lawns, grows as an ordinary umbrageous tree, and shows no disposition to be a climber; when planted in a forest it still takes the same form, then sends out a climbing branch, which twines round another tree until it rises thirty or forty feet, or to the level of the other trees, and there spreads out a second crown where it can enjoy a fair share of the sun's rays. In parts of the forest still more dense than this, it assumes the form of a climber only, and at once avails itself of the assistance of a tall neighbor by winding vigorously round it, without attempting to form a lower head. It does not succeed so well as parasites proper, but where forced to contend for space it may be mistaken for one which is invariably a climber. The paths here were very narrow and very much encumbered with gigantic creepers, often as thick as a man's leg. There must be some reason why they prefer, in some districts, to go up trees in the common form of the thread of a screw rather than in any other. On the one bank of the Chihune they appeared to a person standing opposite them to wind up from left to right, on the other bank from right to left. I imagined this was owing to the sun being at one season of the year on their north and at another on their south. But on the Leeambye I observed creepers winding up on opposite sides of the same reed, and making a figure like the lacings of a sandal.