It was now quite evident that no healthy location could be obtained in which the Makololo would be allowed to live in peace.  I had thus a fair excuse, if I had chosen to avail myself of it, of coming home and saying that the “door was shut”, because the Lord’s time had not yet come.  But believing that it was my duty to devote some portion of my life to these (to me at least) very confiding and affectionate Makololo, I resolved to follow out the second part of my plan, though I had failed in accomplishing the first.  The Leeba seemed to come from the N. and by W., or N.N.W.; so, having an old Portuguese map, which pointed out the Coanza as rising from the middle of the continent in 9 Deg.  S. lat., I thought it probable that, when we had ascended the Leeba (from 14d 11’) two or three degrees, we should then be within one hundred and twenty miles of the Coanza, and find no difficulty in following it down to the coast near Loanda.  This was the logical deduction; but, as is the case with many a plausible theory, one of the premises was decidedly defective.  The Coanza, as we afterward found, does not come from any where near the centre of the country.

The numbers of large game above Libonta are prodigious, and they proved remarkably tame.  Eighty-one buffaloes defiled in slow procession before our fire one evening, within gunshot; and herds of splendid elands stood by day, without fear, at two hundred yards distance.  They were all of the striped variety, and with their forearm markings, large dewlaps, and sleek skins, were a beautiful sight to see.  The lions here roar much more than in the country near the lake, Zouga, and Chobe.  One evening we had a good opportunity of hearing the utmost exertions the animal can make in that line.  We had made our beds on a large sand-bank, and could be easily seen from all sides.  A lion on the opposite shore amused himself for hours by roaring as loudly as he could, putting, as is usual in such cases, his mouth near the ground, to make the sound reverberate.  The river was too broad for a ball to reach him, so we let him enjoy himself, certain that he durst not have been guilty of the impertinence in the Bushman country.  Wherever the game abounds, these animals exist in proportionate numbers.  Here they were very frequently seen, and two of the largest I ever saw seemed about as tall as common donkeys; but the mane made their bodies appear rather larger.

A party of Arabs from Zanzibar were in the country at this time.  Sekeletu had gone from Naliele to the town of his mother before we arrived from the north, but left an ox for our use, and instructions for us to follow him thither.  We came down a branch of the Leeambye called Marile, which departs from the main river in latitude 15d 15’ 43” S., and is a fine deep stream about sixty yards wide.  It makes the whole of the country around Naliele an island.  When sleeping at a village in the same latitude as Naliele town, two of the Arabs mentioned