Missionary Travels And Researches In South Africa By David Livingstone



 -   They carried their paddles with them,
and, as the Makololo suggested, were able to swim over the rivers by night - Page 427
Missionary Travels And Researches In South Africa By David Livingstone - Page 427 of 572 - First - Home

Enter page number    Previous Next

Number of Words to Display Per Page: 250 500 1000

They Carried Their Paddles With Them, And, As The Makololo Suggested, Were Able To Swim Over The Rivers By Night And Steal Canoes, If The Inhabitants Should Be So Unreasonable As To Refuse To Lend Them.

These different parties assorted together into messes; any orders were given through their head man, and when food was obtained he distributed it to the mess.

Each party knew its own spot in the encampment; and as this was always placed so that our backs should be to the east, the direction from whence the prevailing winds came, no time was lost in fixing the sheds of our encampment. They each took it in turn to pull grass to make my bed, so I lay luxuriously.

NOVEMBER 26TH. As the oxen could only move at night, in consequence of a fear that the buffaloes in this quarter might have introduced the tsetse, I usually performed the march by day on foot, while some of the men brought on the oxen by night. On coming to the villages under Marimba, an old man, we crossed the Unguesi, a rivulet which, like the Lekone, runs backward. It falls into the Leeambye a little above the commencement of the rapids. The stratified gneiss, which is the underlying rock of much of this part of the country, dips toward the centre of the continent, but the strata are often so much elevated as to appear nearly on their edges. Rocks of augitic trap are found in various positions on it; the general strike is north and south; but when the gneiss was first seen, near to the basalt of the falls, it was easterly and westerly, and the dip toward the north, as if the eruptive force of the basalt had placed it in that position.

We passed the remains of a very large town, which, from the only evidence of antiquity afforded by ruins in this country, must have been inhabited for a long period; the millstones of gneiss, trap, and quartz were worn down two and a half inches perpendicularly. The ivory grave-stones soon rot away. Those of Moyara's father, who must have died not more than a dozen years ago, were crumbling into powder; and we found this to be generally the case all over the Batoka country. The region around is pretty well covered with forest; but there is abundance of open pasturage, and, as we are ascending in altitude, we find the grass to be short, and altogether unlike the tangled herbage of the Barotse valley.

It is remarkable that we now meet with the same trees we saw in descending toward the west coast. A kind of sterculia, which is the most common tree at Loanda, and the baobab, flourish here; and the tree called moshuka, which we found near Tala Mungongo, was now yielding its fruit, which resembles small apples. The people brought it to us in large quantities: it tastes like a pear, but has a harsh rind, and four large seeds within. We found prodigious quantities of this fruit as we went along. The tree attains the height of 15 or 20 feet, and has leaves, hard and glossy, as large as one's hand.

Enter page number   Previous Next
Page 427 of 572
Words from 228632 to 229167 of 306638


Previous 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 Next

More links: First 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200
 210 220 230 240 250 260 270 280 290 300
 310 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400
 410 420 430 440 450 460 470 480 490 500
 510 520 530 540 550 560 570 Last

Display Words Per Page: 250 500 1000

 
Africa (29)
Asia (27)
Europe (59)
North America (58)
Oceania (24)
South America (8)
 

List of Travel Books RSS Feeds

Africa Travel Books RSS Feed

Asia Travel Books RSS Feed

Europe Travel Books RSS Feed

North America Travel Books RSS Feed

Oceania Travel Books RSS Feed

South America Travel Books RSS Feed

Copyright © 2005 - 2022 Travel Books Online