Their
Colour Attests The Greater Altitude Of The Country In Which Many Of
Them Formerly Lived.
Some, however, are as dark as the Bashubia and
Barotse of the great valley to their west, in which stands Sesheke,
formerly the capital of the Balui, or Bashubia.
The assertion may seem strange, yet it is none the less true, that in
all the tribes we have visited we never saw a really black person.
Different shades of brown prevail, and often with a bright bronze
tint, which no painter, except Mr. Angus, seems able to catch. Those
who inhabit elevated, dry situations, and who are not obliged to work
much in the sun, are frequently of a light warm brown, "dark but
comely." Darkness of colour is probably partly caused by the sun,
and partly by something in the climate or soil which we do not yet
know. We see something of the same sort in trout and other fish
which take their colour from the ponds or streams in which they live.
The members of our party were much less embrowned by free exposure to
the sun for years than Dr. Livingstone and his family were by passing
once from Kuruman to Cape Town, a journey which occupied only a
couple of months.
We encamped on the Kalomo, on the 1st of October, and found the
weather very much warmer than when we crossed this stream in August.
At 3 p.m. the thermometer, four feet from the ground, was 101 degrees
in the shade; the wet bulb only 61 degrees:
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