Having Taken Lunar Observations In The Morning,
I Was Waiting For A Meridian Altitude Of The Sun For The Latitude;
My Chief Boatman Was Sitting By, In Order To Pack Up The Instruments
As Soon As I Had Finished; There Was A Large Halo, About 20 Deg.
In diameter,
round the sun; thinking that the humidity of the atmosphere,
which this indicated, might betoken rain, I asked him if his experience
did not lead him to the same view.
"Oh no," replied he;
"it is the Barimo (gods or departed spirits), who have called a picho;
don't you see they have the Lord (sun) in the centre?"
While still at Naliele I walked out to Katongo (lat. 15d 16' 33"),
on the ridge which bounds the valley of the Barotse in that direction,
and found it covered with trees. It is only the commencement
of the lands which are never inundated; their gentle rise
from the dead level of the valley much resembles the edge of the Desert
in the valley of the Nile. But here the Banyeti have fine gardens, and raise
great quantities of maize, millet, and native corn (`Holcus sorghum'),
of large grain and beautifully white. They grow, also,
yams, sugar-cane, the Egyptian arum, sweet potato (`Convolulus batata'),
two kinds of manioc or cassava (`Jatropha manihot' and `J. utilissima',
a variety containing scarcely any poison), besides pumpkins, melons,
beans, and ground-nuts. These, with plenty of fish in the river,
its branches and lagoons, wild fruits and water-fowl,
always make the people refer to the Barotse as the land of plenty.
The scene from the ridge, on looking back, was beautiful. One can not see
the western side of the valley in a cloudy day, such as that was
when we visited the stockade, but we could see the great river glancing out
at different points, and fine large herds of cattle quietly grazing
on the green succulent herbage, among numbers of cattle-stations and villages
which are dotted over the landscape. Leches in hundreds fed securely
beside them, for they have learned only to keep out of bow-shot,
or two hundred yards. When guns come into a country the animals soon learn
their longer range, and begin to run at a distance of five hundred yards.
I imagined the slight elevation (Katongo) might be healthy, but was informed
that no part of this region is exempt from fever. When the waters begin
to retire from this valley, such masses of decayed vegetation and mud
are exposed to the torrid sun that even the natives suffer severely
from attacks of fever. The grass is so rank in its growth that one
can not see the black alluvial soil of the bottom of this periodical lake.
Even when the grass falls down in winter, or is "laid" by its own weight,
one is obliged to lift the feet so high, to avoid being tripped up by it,
as to make walking excessively fatiguing. Young leches are hidden beneath it
by their dams; and the Makololo youth complain of being unable
to run in the Barotse land on this account.
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