There are some very old Barotse living here who were the companions of the old chief Santuru. These men, protected by their age, were very free in their comments on the "upstart" Makololo. One of them, for instance, interrupted my conversation one day with some Makololo gentlemen with the advice "not to believe them, for they were only a set of thieves;" and it was taken in quite a good-natured way. It is remarkable that none of the ancients here had any tradition of an earthquake having occurred in this region. Their quick perception of events recognizable by the senses, and retentiveness of memory, render it probable that no perceptible movement of the earth has taken place between 7 Deg. and 27 Deg. S. in the centre of the continent during the last two centuries at least. There is no appearance of recent fracture or disturbance of rocks to be seen in the central country, except the falls of Gonye; nor is there any evidence or tradition of hurricanes.
I left Naliele on the 13th of August, and, when proceeding along the shore at midday, a hippopotamus struck the canoe with her forehead, lifting one half of it quite out of the water, so as nearly to overturn it. The force of the butt she gave tilted Mashauana out into the river; the rest of us sprang to the shore, which was only about ten yards off. Glancing back, I saw her come to the surface a short way off, and look to the canoe, as if to see if she had done much mischief. It was a female, whose young one had been speared the day before. No damage was done except wetting person and goods. This is so unusual an occurrence, when the precaution is taken to coast along the shore, that my men exclaimed, "Is the beast mad?" There were eight of us in the canoe at the time, and the shake it received shows the immense power of this animal in the water.
On reaching Gonye, Mokwala, the head man, having presented me with a tusk, I gave it to Pitsane, as he was eagerly collecting ivory for the Loanda market. The rocks of Gonye are reddish gray sandstone, nearly horizontal, and perforated by madrepores, the holes showing the course of the insect in different directions. The rock itself has been impregnated with iron, and that hardened, forms a glaze on the surface--an appearance common to many of the rocks of this country.
AUGUST 22D. This is the end of winter. The trees which line the banks begin to bud and blossom, and there is some show of the influence of the new sap, which will soon end in buds that push off the old foliage by assuming a very bright orange color. This orange is so bright that I mistook it for masses of yellow blossom. There is every variety of shade in the leaves--yellow, purple, copper, liver-color, and even inky black.
Having got the loan of other canoes from Mpololo, and three oxen as provision for the way, which made the number we had been presented with in the Barotse valley amount to thirteen, we proceeded down the river toward Sesheke, and were as much struck as formerly with the noble river. The whole scenery is lovely, though the atmosphere is murky in consequence of the continuance of the smoky tinge of winter.
This peculiar tinge of the atmosphere was observed every winter at Kolobeng, but it was not so observable in Londa as in the south, though I had always considered that it was owing to the extensive burnings of the grass, in which hundreds of miles of pasturage are annually consumed. As the quantity burned in the north is very much greater than in the south, and the smoky tinge of winter was not observed, some other explanation than these burnings must be sought for. I have sometimes imagined that the lowering of the temperature in the winter rendered the vapor in the upper current of air visible, and imparted this hazy appearance.