Now I do not say that this part of the river presents a very inviting prospect for extemporaneous European enterprise; but when we have a pathway which requires only the formation of portages to make it equal to our canals for hundreds of miles, where the philosophers supposed there was naught but an extensive sandy desert, we must confess that the future partakes at least of the elements of hope.  My deliberate conviction was and is that the part of the country indicated is as capable of supporting millions of inhabitants as it is of its thousands.  The grass of the Barotse valley, for instance, is such a densely-matted mass that, when “laid”, the stalks bear each other up, so that one feels as if walking on the sheaves of a hay-stack, and the leches nestle under it to bring forth their young.  The soil which produces this, if placed under the plow, instead of being mere pasturage, would yield grain sufficient to feed vast multitudes.

We now began to ascend the Leeba.  The water is black in color as compared with the main stream, which here assumes the name of Kabompo.  The Leeba flows placidly, and, unlike the parent river, receives numbers of little rivulets from both sides.  It winds slowly through the most charming meadows, each of which has either a soft, sedgy centre, large pond, or trickling rill down the middle.  The trees are now covered with a profusion of the freshest foliage, and seem planted in groups of such pleasant, graceful outline that art could give no additional charm.  The grass, which had been burned off and was growing again after the rains, was short and green, and all the scenery so like that of a carefully-tended gentleman’s park, that one is scarcely reminded that the surrounding region is in the hands of simple nature alone.  I suspect that the level meadows are inundated annually, for the spots on which the trees stand are elevated three or four feet above them, and these elevations, being of different shapes, give the strange variety of outline of the park-like woods.  Numbers of a fresh-water shell are scattered all over these valleys.  The elevations, as I have observed elsewhere, are of a soft, sandy soil, and the meadows of black, rich alluvial loam.  There are many beautiful flowers, and many bees to sip their nectar.  We found plenty of honey in the woods, and saw the stages on which the Balonda dry their meat, when they come down to hunt and gather the produce of the wild hives.  In one part we came upon groups of lofty trees as straight as masts, with festoons of orchilla-weed hanging from the branches.  This, which is used as a dye-stuff, is found nowhere in the dry country to the south.  It prefers the humid climate near the west coast.