then uttering a string of half-incoherent sentences, usually in self-praise.  This pernicious weed is extensively used in all the tribes of the interior.  It causes a species of phrensy, and Sebituane’s soldiers, on coming in sight of their enemies, sat down and smoked it, in order that they might make an effective onslaught.  I was unable to prevail on Sekeletu and the young Makololo to forego its use, although they can not point to an old man in the tribe who has been addicted to this indulgence.  I believe it was the proximate cause of Sebituane’s last illness, for it sometimes occasions pneumonia.  Never having tried it, I can not describe the pleasurable effects it is said to produce, but the hashish in use among the Turks is simply an extract of the same plant, and that, like opium, produces different effects on different individuals.  Some view every thing as if looking in through the wide end of a telescope, and others, in passing over a straw, lift up their feet as if about to cross the trunk of a tree.  The Portuguese in Angola have such a belief in its deleterious effects that the use of it by a slave is considered a crime.

November 28th.  The inhabitants of the last of Kaonka’s villages complained of being plundered by the independent Batoka.  The tribes in front of this are regarded by the Makololo as in a state of rebellion.  I promised to speak to the rebels on the subject, and enjoined on Kaonka the duty of giving them no offense.  According to Sekeletu’s order, Kaonka gave us the tribute of maize-corn and ground-nuts, which would otherwise have gone to Linyanti.  This had been done at every village, and we thereby saved the people the trouble of a journey to the capital.  My own Batoka had brought away such loads of provisions from their homes that we were in no want of food.

After leaving Kaonka we traveled over an uninhabited, gently undulating, and most beautiful district, the border territory between those who accept and those who reject the sway of the Makololo.  The face of the country appears as if in long waves, running north and south.  There are no rivers, though water stands in pools in the hollows.  We were now come into the country which my people all magnify as a perfect paradise.  Sebituane was driven from it by the Matebele.  It suited him exactly for cattle, corn, and health.  The soil is dry, and often a reddish sand; there are few trees, but fine large shady ones stand dotted here and there over the country where towns formerly stood.  One of the fig family I measured, and found to be forty feet in circumference; the heart had been burned out, and some one had made a lodging in it, for we saw the remains of a bed and a fire.  The sight of the open country, with the increased altitude we were attaining, was most refreshing to the spirits.  Large game abound.  We see in the distance buffaloes, elands, hartebeest, gnus, and elephants, all very tame, as no one disturbs them.  Lions, which always