We proceeded rapidly up the river, and I felt the pleasure of looking on lands which had never been seen by a European before. The river is, indeed, a magnificent one, often more than a mile broad, and adorned with many islands of from three to five miles in length. Both islands and banks are covered with forest, and most of the trees on the brink of the water send down roots from their branches like the banian, or 'Ficus Indica'. The islands at a little distance seem great rounded masses of sylvan vegetation reclining on the bosom of the glorious stream. The beauty of the scenery of some of the islands is greatly increased by the date-palm, with its gracefully curved fronds and refreshing light green color, near the bottom of the picture, and the lofty palmyra towering far above, and casting its feathery foliage against a cloudless sky. It being winter, we had the strange coloring on the banks which many parts of African landscape assume. The country adjacent to the river is rocky and undulating, abounding in elephants and all other large game, except leches and nakongs, which seem generally to avoid stony ground. The soil is of a reddish color, and very fertile, as is attested by the great quantity of grain raised annually by the Banyeti. A great many villages of this poor and very industrious people are situated on both banks of the river: they are expert hunters of the hippopotami and other animals, and very proficient in the manufacture of articles of wood and iron. The whole of this part of the country being infested with the tsetse, they are unable to rear domestic animals. This may have led to their skill in handicraft works. Some make large wooden vessels with very neat lids, and wooden bowls of all sizes; and since the idea of sitting on stools has entered the Makololo mind, they have shown great taste in the different forms given to the legs of these pieces of furniture.
Other Banyeti, or Manyeti, as they are called, make neat and strong baskets of the split roots of a certain tree, while others excel in pottery and iron. I can not find that they have ever been warlike. Indeed, the wars in the centre of the country, where no slave-trade existed, have seldom been about any thing else but cattle. So well known is this, that several tribes refuse to keep cattle because they tempt their enemies to come and steal. Nevertheless, they have no objection to eat them when offered, and their country admits of being well stocked. I have heard of but one war having occurred from another cause. Three brothers, Barolongs, fought for the possession of a woman who was considered worth a battle, and the tribe has remained permanently divided ever since.
From the bend up to the north, called Katima-molelo (I quenched fire), the bed of the river is rocky, and the stream runs fast, forming a succession of rapids and cataracts, which prevent continuous navigation when the water is low. The rapids are not visible when the river is full, but the cataracts of Nambwe, Bombwe, and Kale must always be dangerous. The fall at each of these is between four and six feet. But the falls of Gonye present a much more serious obstacle. There we were obliged to take the canoes out of the water, and carry them more than a mile by land. The fall is about thirty feet. The main body of water, which comes over the ledge of rock when the river is low, is collected into a space seventy or eighty yards wide before it takes the leap, and, a mass of rock being thrust forward against the roaring torrent, a loud sound is produced. Tradition reports the destruction in this place of two hippopotamus-hunters, who, over-eager in the pursuit of a wounded animal, were, with their intended prey, drawn down into the frightful gulf. There is also a tradition of a man, evidently of a superior mind, who left his own countrymen, the Barotse, and came down the river, took advantage of the falls, and led out a portion of the water there for irrigation. Such minds must have arisen from time to time in these regions, as well as in our own country, but, ignorant of the use of letters, they have left no memorial behind them. We dug out some of an inferior kind of potato ('Sisinyane') from his garden, for when once planted it never dies out. This root is bitter and waxy, though it is cultivated. It was not in flower, so I can not say whether it is a solanaceous plant or not. One never expects to find a grave nor a stone of remembrance set up in Africa; the very rocks are illiterate, they contain so few fossils. Those here are of reddish variegated, hardened sandstone, with madrepore holes in it. This, and broad horizontal strata of trap, sometimes a hundred miles in extent, and each layer having an inch or so of black silicious matter on it, as if it had floated there while in a state of fusion, form a great part of the bottom of the central valley. These rocks, in the southern part of the country especially, are often covered with twelve or fifteen feet of soft calcareous tufa. At Bombwe we have the same trap, with radiated zeolite, probably mesotype, and it again appears at the confluence of the Chobe, farther down.
As we passed up the river, the different villages of Banyeti turned out to present Sekeletu with food and skins, as their tribute. One large village is placed at Gonye, the inhabitants of which are required to assist the Makololo to carry their canoes past the falls. The tsetse here lighted on us even in the middle of the stream. This we crossed repeatedly, in order to make short cuts at bends of the river. The course is, however, remarkably straight among the rocks; and here the river is shallow, on account of the great breadth of surface which it covers. When we came to about 16d 16' S. latitude, the high wooded banks seemed to leave the river, and no more tsetse appeared. Viewed from the flat, reedy basin in which the river then flowed, the banks seemed prolonged into ridges, of the same wooded character, two or three hundred feet high, and stretched away to the N.N.E. and N.N.W. until they were twenty or thirty miles apart. The intervening space, nearly one hundred miles in length, with the Leeambye winding gently near the middle, is the true Barotse valley. It bears a close resemblance to the valley of the Nile, and is inundated annually, not by rains, but by the Leeambye, exactly as Lower Egypt is flooded by the Nile. The villages of the Barotse are built on mounds, some of which are said to have been raised artificially by Santuru, a former chief of the Barotse, and during the inundation the whole valley assumes the appearance of a large lake, with the villages on the mounds like islands, just as occurs in Egypt with the villages of the Egyptians. Some portion of the waters of inundation comes from the northwest, where great floodings also occur, but more comes from the north and northeast, descending the bed of the Leeambye itself. There are but few trees in this valley: those which stand on the mounds were nearly all transplanted by Santuru for shade. The soil is extremely fertile, and the people are never in want of grain, for, by taking advantage of the moisture of the inundation, they can take two crops a year. The Barotse are strongly attached to this fertile valley; they say, "Here hunger is not known." There are so many things besides corn which a man can find in it for food, that it is no wonder they desert from Linyanti to return to this place.
The great valley is not put to a tithe of the use it might be. It is covered with coarse succulent grasses, which afford ample pasturage for large herds of cattle; these thrive wonderfully, and give milk copiously to their owners. When the valley is flooded, the cattle are compelled to leave it and go to the higher lands, where they fall off in condition; their return is a time of joy.
It is impossible to say whether this valley, which contains so much moisture, would raise wheat as the valley of the Nile does. It is probably too rich, and would make corn run entirely to straw, for one species of grass was observed twelve feet high, with a stem as thick as a man's thumb. At present the pasturage is never eaten off, though the Makololo possess immense herds of cattle.
There are no large towns, the mounds on which the towns and villages are built being all small, and the people require to live apart on account of their cattle.
This visit was the first Sekeletu had made to these parts since he attained the chieftainship. Those who had taken part with Mpepe were consequently in great terror. When we came to the town of Mpepe's father, as he and another man had counseled Mamochisane to put Sekeletu to death and marry Mpepe, the two were led forth and tossed into the river. Nokuane was again one of the executioners. When I remonstrated against human blood being shed in the offhand way in which they were proceeding, the counselors justified their acts by the evidence given by Mamochisane, and calmly added, "You see we are still Boers; we are not yet taught."
Mpepe had given full permission to the Mambari slave-dealers to trade in all the Batoka and Bashukulompo villages to the east of this. He had given them cattle, ivory, and children, and had received in return a large blunderbuss to be mounted as a cannon. When the slight circumstance of my having covered the body of the chief with my own deranged the whole conspiracy, the Mambari, in their stockade, were placed in very awkward circumstances. It was proposed to attack them and drive them out of the country at once; but, dreading a commencement of hostilities, I urged the difficulties of that course, and showed that a stockade defended by perhaps forty muskets would be a very serious affair. "Hunger is strong enough for that," said an under-chief; "a very great fellow is he." They thought of attacking them by starvation. As the chief sufferers in case of such an attack would have been the poor slaves chained in gangs, I interceded for them, and the result of an intercession of which they were ignorant was that they were allowed to depart in peace.
Naliele, the capital of the Barotse, is built on a mound which was constructed artificially by Santuru, and was his store-house for grain. His own capital stood about five hundred yards to the south of that, in what is now the bed of the river. All that remains of the largest mound in the valley are a few cubic yards of earth, to erect which cost the whole of the people of Santuru the labor of many years. The same thing has happened to another ancient site of a town, Linangelo, also on the left bank. It would seem, therefore, that the river in this part of the valley must be wearing eastward. No great rise of the river is required to submerge the whole valley; a rise of ten feet above the present low-water mark would reach the highest point it ever attains, as seen in the markings of the bank on which stood Santuru's ancient capital, and two or three feet more would deluge all the villages. This never happens, though the water sometimes comes so near the foundations of the huts that the people can not move outside the walls of reeds which encircle their villages. When the river is compressed among the high rocky banks near Gonye, it rises sixty feet.