on my approach to Linyanti, they let me know that they had a vivid idea of the customs of English cruisers on the coast.  They showed also their habits in their own country by digging up and eating, even here where large game abounds, the mice and moles which infest the country.  The half-castes, or native Portuguese, could all read and write, and the head of the party, if not a real Portuguese, had European hair, and, influenced probably by the letter of recommendation which I held from the Chevalier Duprat, his most faithful majesty’s Arbitrator in the British and Portuguese Mixed Commission at Cape Town, was evidently anxious to show me all the kindness in his power.  These persons I feel assured were the first individuals of Portuguese blood who ever saw the Zambesi in the centre of the country, and they had reached it two years after our discovery in 1851.

The town or mound of Santuru’s mother was shown to me; this was the first symptom of an altered state of feeling with regard to the female sex that I had observed.  There are few or no cases of women being elevated to the headships of towns further south.  The Barotse also showed some relics of their chief, which evinced a greater amount of the religious feeling than I had ever known displayed among Bechuanas.  His more recent capital, Lilonda, built, too, on an artificial mound, is covered with different kinds of trees, transplanted when young by himself.  They form a grove on the end of the mound, in which are to be seen various instruments of iron just in the state he left them.  One looks like the guard of a basket-hilted sword; another has an upright stem of the metal, on which are placed branches worked at the ends into miniature axes, hoes, and spears; on these he was accustomed to present offerings, according as he desired favors to be conferred in undertaking hewing, agriculture, or fighting.  The people still living there, in charge of these articles, were supported by presents from the chief; and the Makololo sometimes follow the example.  This was the nearest approach to a priesthood I met.  When I asked them to part with one of these relics, they replied, “Oh no, he refuses.”  “Who refuses?” “Santuru,” was their reply, showing their belief in a future state of existence.  After explaining to them, as I always did when opportunity offered, the nature of true worship, and praying with them in the simple form which needs no offering from the worshiper except that of the heart, and planting some fruit-tree seeds in the grove, we departed.

Another incident, which occurred at the confluence of the Leeba and Leeambye, may be mentioned here, as showing a more vivid perception of the existence of spiritual beings, and greater proneness to worship than among the Bechuanas.  Having taken lunar observations in the morning, I was waiting for a meridian altitude of the sun for the latitude; my chief boatman was sitting by, in order to pack up the instruments as soon as I had finished; there was a large halo, about 20 Deg. in diameter, round the sun; thinking that the humidity of the atmosphere, which this indicated, might betoken rain, I asked him if his experience did not lead him to the same view.  “Oh no,” replied he; “it is the Barimo (gods or departed spirits), who have called a picho; don’t you see they have the Lord (sun) in the centre?”