We passed the remains of a very large town, which, from the only evidence of antiquity afforded by ruins in this country, must have been inhabited for a long period; the millstones of gneiss, trap, and quartz were worn down two and a half inches perpendicularly.  The ivory grave-stones soon rot away.  Those of Moyara’s father, who must have died not more than a dozen years ago, were crumbling into powder; and we found this to be generally the case all over the Batoka country.  The region around is pretty well covered with forest; but there is abundance of open pasturage, and, as we are ascending in altitude, we find the grass to be short, and altogether unlike the tangled herbage of the Barotse valley.

It is remarkable that we now meet with the same trees we saw in descending toward the west coast.  A kind of sterculia, which is the most common tree at Loanda, and the baobab, flourish here; and the tree called moshuka, which we found near Tala Mungongo, was now yielding its fruit, which resembles small apples.  The people brought it to us in large quantities:  it tastes like a pear, but has a harsh rind, and four large seeds within.  We found prodigious quantities of this fruit as we went along.  The tree attains the height of 15 or 20 feet, and has leaves, hard and glossy, as large as one’s hand.  The tree itself is never found on the lowlands, but is mentioned with approbation at the end of the work of Bowditch.  My men almost lived upon the fruit for many days.

The rains had fallen only partially:  in many parts the soil was quite dry and the leaves drooped mournfully, but the fruit-trees are unaffected by a drought, except when it happens at the time of their blossoming.  The Batoka of my party declared that no one ever dies of hunger here.  We obtained baskets of maneko, a curious fruit, with a horny rind, split into five pieces:  these sections, when chewed, are full of a fine glutinous matter, and sweet like sugar.  The seeds are covered with a yellow silky down, and are not eaten:  the entire fruit is about the size of a walnut.  We got also abundance of the motsouri and mamosho.  We saw the Batoka eating the beans called nju, which are contained in a large square pod; also the pulp between the seeds of nux vomica, and the motsintsela.  Other fruits become ripe at other seasons, as the motsikiri, which yields an oil, and is a magnificent tree, bearing masses of dark evergreen leaves; so that, from the general plenty, one can readily believe the statement made by the Batoka.  We here saw trees allowed to stand in gardens, and some of the Batoka even plant them, a practice seen nowhere else among natives.  A species of leucodendron abounds.  When we meet with it on a spot on which no rain has yet fallen, we see that the young ones twist their leaves round during the heat of the day, so that the edge only is exposed to the rays of the sun; they have then a half twist on the petiole.  The acacias in the same circumstances, and also the mopane (’Bauhania’), fold their leaves together, and, by presenting the smallest possible surface to the sun, simulate the eucalypti of Australia.