- Arrest of a Fugitive -
Dignified old Courtier - Katema's lax Government -
Cold Wind from the North - Canaries and other singing Birds -
Spiders, their Nests and Webs - Lake Dilolo - Tradition -
Sagacity of Ants.
26TH. Leaving Shinte, with eight of his men to aid in carrying our luggage,
we passed, in a northerly direction, down the lovely valley
on which the town stands, then went a little to the west
through pretty open forest, and slept at a village of Balonda.
In the morning we had a fine range of green hills, called Saloisho,
on our right, and were informed that they were rather thickly inhabited
by the people of Shinte, who worked in iron, the ore of which abounds
in these hills.
The country through which we passed possessed the same general character
of flatness and forest that we noticed before. The soil is dark,
with a tinge of red - in some places it might be called red - and appeared
very fertile. Every valley contained villages of twenty or thirty huts,
with gardens of manioc, which here is looked upon as the staff of life.
Very little labor is required for its cultivation. The earth is drawn up
into oblong beds, about three feet broad and one in height,
and in these are planted pieces of the manioc stalk, at four feet apart.
A crop of beans or ground-nuts is sown between them,
and when these are reaped the land around the manioc is cleared of weeds.
In from ten to eighteen months after planting, according to
the quality of the soil, the roots are fit for food.
