Some months were passed in this country, which is described
as fertile and well-cultivated - producing millet, maize, yams,
sweet potatoes, cassava, beans, pumpkins, water-melons, and the like.
The sugar-cane grows plentifully, but the people had never learned
the process of making sugar. They have great numbers of cattle,
and game of various species abounds. On one occasion
a troop of eighty-one buffaloes defiled slowly before their evening fire,
while herds of splendid elands stood, without fear,
at two hundred yards' distance. The country is rather unhealthy,
from the mass of decayed vegetation exposed to the torrid sun.
After due consideration, Livingstone resolved to make his way to Loanda,
a Portuguese settlement on the western coast. Sekeletu, anxious to open
a trade with the coast, appointed twenty-seven men to accompany the traveler;
and on the 11th of November, 1853, he set out on his journey.
Three or four small boxes contained all the baggage of the party.
The only provisions were a few pounds of biscuits, coffee, tea, and sugar;
their main reliance being upon the game which they expected to kill,
and, this failing, upon the proceeds of about ten dollars' worth of beads.
They also took with them a few elephants' tusks, which Sekeletu sent
by way of a trading venture.
