About thirty-four miles east of the Lolua, or a hundred and thirty-two miles E.N.E. of Cabango, stands the town of Matiamvo, the paramount chief of all the Balonda.  The town of Mai is pointed out as to the N.N.W. of Cabango, and thirty-two days or two hundred and twenty-four miles distant, or about lat.  S. 5d 45’.  The chief town of Luba, another independent chief, is eight days farther in the same direction, or lat.  S. 4d 50’.  Judging from the appearance of the people who had come for the purposes of trade from Mai, those in the north are in quite as uncivilized a condition as the Balonda.  They are clad in a kind of cloth made of the inner bark of a tree.  Neither guns nor native traders are admitted into the country, the chief of Luba entertaining a dread of innovation.  If a native trader goes thither, he must dress like the common people in Angola, in a loose robe resembling a kilt.  The chief trades in shells and beads only.  His people kill the elephants by means of spears, poisoned arrows, and traps.  All assert that elephants’ tusks from that country are heavier and of greater length than any others.

It is evident, from all the information I could collect both here and elsewhere, that the drainage of Londa falls to the north and then runs westward.  The countries of Luba and Mai are evidently lower than this, and yet this is of no great altitude—­probably not much more than 3500 feet above the level of the sea.  Having here received pretty certain information on a point in which I felt much interest, namely, that the Kasai is not navigable from the coast, owing to the large waterfall near the town of Mai, and that no great kingdom exists in the region beyond, between this and the equator, I would fain have visited Matiamvo.  This seemed a very desirable step, as it is good policy as well as right to acknowledge the sovereign of a country; and I was assured, both by Balonda and native traders, that a considerable branch of the Zambesi rises in the country east of his town, and flows away to the south.  The whole of this branch, extending down even to where it turns westward to Masiko, is probably placed too far eastward on the map.  It was put down when I believed Matiamvo and Cazembe to be farther east than I have since seen reason to believe them.  All, being derived from native testimony, is offered to the reader with diffidence, as needing verification by actual explorers.  The people of that part, named Kanyika and Kanyoka, living on its banks, are represented as both numerous and friendly, but Matiamvo will on no account permit any white person to visit them, as his principal supplies of ivory are drawn from them.  Thinking that we might descend this branch of the Zambesi to Masiko, and thence to the Barotse, I felt a strong inclination to make the attempt.  The goods, however, we had brought with us to pay our way, had, by the long detention from fever and weakness in both myself and men, dwindled to a mere fragment; and, being but slightly acquainted