As We Looked Back Toward The Open Pastoral Country Of Ambaca,
The Broad Green Gently Undulating Plains Seemed In A Hollow
Surrounded On All Sides By Rugged Mountains, And As We Went Westward
We Were Entering Upon Quite A Wild-Looking Mountainous District,
Called Golungo Alto.
We met numbers of Mambari on their way back to Bihe.
Some of them
had belonged to the parties which had penetrated as far as Linyanti,
and foolishly showed their displeasure at the prospect of the Makololo
preferring to go to the coast markets themselves to intrusting them
with their ivory. The Mambari repeated the tale of the mode in which
the white men are said to trade. "The ivory is left on the shore
in the evening, and next morning the seller finds a quantity of goods
placed there in its stead by the white men who live in the sea."
"Now," added they to my men, "how can you Makololo trade with these `Mermen'?
Can you enter into the sea, and tell them to come ashore?"
It was remarkable to hear this idea repeated so near the sea as we now were.
My men replied that they only wanted to see for themselves;
and, as they were now getting some light on the nature of the trade
carried on by the Mambari, they were highly amused on perceiving
the reasons why the Mambari would rather have met them on the Zambesi
than so near the sea-coast.
There is something so exhilarating to one of Highland blood in being
near or on high mountains, that I forgot my fever as we wended our way among
the lofty tree-covered masses of mica schist which form the highlands around
the romantic residence of the chefe of Golungo Alto.
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