On reaching unflooded lands beyond the plain, we found
the villages there acknowledged the authority of the chief named
Katende,
and we discovered, also, to our surprise, that the almost level plain
we had passed forms the watershed between the southern and northern rivers,
for we had now entered a district in which the rivers flowed
in a northerly direction into the Kasai or Loke, near to which we now were,
while the rivers we had hitherto crossed were all running southward.
Having met with kind treatment and aid at the first village,
Katema's guides returned, and we were led to the N.N.W. by the inhabitants,
and descended into the very first really deep valley we had seen
since leaving Kolobeng. A stream ran along the bottom of a slope
of three or four hundred yards from the plains above.
We crossed this by a rustic bridge at present submerged thigh-deep
by the rains. The trees growing along the stream of this lovely valley
were thickly planted and very high. Many had sixty or eighty feet of
clean straight trunk, and beautiful flowers adorned the ground beneath them.
Ascending the opposite side, we came, in two hours' time,
to another valley, equally beautiful, and with a stream also in its centre.
It may seem mere trifling to note such an unimportant thing
as the occurrence of a valley, there being so many in every country
under the sun; but as these were branches of that in which
the Kasai or Loke flows, and both that river and its feeders
derive their water in a singular manner from the valley sides,
I may be excused for calling particular attention to the more furrowed nature
of the country.
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