valley, are not more than two or three hundred feet in altitude over the general dead level.  Many of the rivers are very tortuous in their course, the Chobe and Simah particularly so; and, if we may receive the testimony of the natives, they form what anatomists call ‘anastamosis’, or a network of rivers.  Thus, for instance, they assured me that if they go up the Simah in a canoe, they can enter the Chobe, and descend that river to the Leeambye; or they may go up the Kama and come down the Simah; and so in the case of the Kafue.  It is reputed to be connected in this way with the Leeambye in the north, and to part with the Loangwa; and the Makololo went from the one into the other in canoes.  And even though the interlacing may not be quite to the extent believed by the natives, the country is so level and the rivers so tortuous that I see no improbability in the conclusion that here is a network of waters of a very peculiar nature.  The reason why I am disposed to place a certain amount of confidence in the native reports is this:  when Mr. Oswell and I discovered the Zambesi in the centre of the continent in 1851, being unable to ascend it at the time ourselves, we employed the natives to draw a map embodying their ideas of that river.  We then sent the native map home with the same view that I now mention their ideas of the river system, namely, in order to be an aid to others in farther investigations.  When I was able to ascend the Leeambye to 14 Deg. south, and subsequently descend it, I found, after all the care I could bestow, that the alterations I was able to make in the original native plan were very trifling.  The general idea their map gave was wonderfully accurate; and now I give, in the larger map appended, their views of the other rivers, in the hope that they may prove helpful to any traveler who may pursue the investigation farther.

24Th.  We remained a day at the village of Moyara.  Here the valley in which the Lekone flows trends away to the eastward, while our course is more to the northeast.  The country is rocky and rough, the soil being red sand, which is covered with beautiful green trees, yielding abundance of wild fruits.  The father of Moyara was a powerful chief, but the son now sits among the ruins of the town, with four or five wives and very few people.  At his hamlet a number of stakes are planted in the ground, and I counted fifty-four human skulls hung on their points.  These were Matebele, who, unable to approach Sebituane on the island of Loyela, had returned sick and famishing.  Moyara’s father took advantage of their reduced condition, and after putting them to death, mounted their heads in the Batoka fashion.  The old man who perpetrated this deed now lies in the middle of his son’s huts, with a lot of rotten ivory over his grave.  One can not help feeling thankful that the reign of such wretches is over.  They inhabited the whole of this side of the country, and were probably the barrier to the extension of the Portuguese commerce