high lands above, is extremely beautiful.  This valley is about the fourth of a mile wide, and it was easy to fancy the similarity of many spots on it to the goodly manors in our own country, and feel assured that there was still ample territory left for an indefinite increase of the world’s population.  The villages are widely apart and difficult of access, from the paths being so covered with tall grass that even an ox can scarcely follow the track.  The grass cuts the feet of the men; yet we met a woman with a little child, and a girl, wending their way home with loads of manioc.  The sight of a white man always infuses a tremor into their dark bosoms, and in every case of the kind they appeared immensely relieved when I had fairly passed without having sprung upon them.  In the villages the dogs run away with their tails between their legs, as if they had seen a lion.  The women peer from behind the walls till he comes near them, and then hastily dash into the house.  When a little child, unconscious of danger, meets you in the street, he sets up a scream at the apparition, and conveys the impression that he is not far from going into fits.  Among the Bechuanas I have been obliged to reprove the women for making a hobgoblin of the white man, and telling their children that they would send for him to bite them.

Having passed the Loembwe, we were in a more open country, with every few hours a small valley, through which ran a little rill in the middle of a bog.  These were always difficult to pass, and being numerous, kept the lower part of the person constantly wet.  At different points in our course we came upon votive offerings to the Barimo.  These usually consisted of food; and every deserted village still contained the idols and little sheds with pots of medicine in them.  One afternoon we passed a small frame house with the head of an ox in it as an object of worship.  The dreary uniformity of gloomy forests and open flats must have a depressing influence on the minds of the people.  Some villages appear more superstitious than others, if we may judge from the greater number of idols they contain.

Only on one occasion did we witness a specimen of quarreling.  An old woman, standing by our camp, continued to belabor a good-looking young man for hours with her tongue.  Irritated at last, he uttered some words of impatience, when another man sprang at him, exclaiming, “How dare you curse my ’Mama’?” They caught each other, and a sort of pushing, dragging wrestling-match ensued.  The old woman who had been the cause of the affray wished us to interfere, and the combatants themselves hoped as much; but we, preferring to remain neutral, allowed them to fight it out.  It ended by one falling under the other, both, from their scuffling, being in a state of nudity.  They picked up their clothing and ran off in different directions, each threatening to bring his gun and settle the dispute in mortal combat.  Only one, however, returned, and the old woman continued her scolding till my men, fairly tired of her tongue, ordered her to be gone.  This trifling incident was one of interest to me, for, during the whole period of my residence in the Bechuana country, I never saw unarmed men strike each other.  Their disputes are usually conducted with great volubility and noisy swearing, but they generally terminate by both parties bursting into a laugh.