of communication between the interior and the coast.  The answer does not mean much more than what I know, by other means, to be the case—­that a white man of good sense would be welcome and safe in all these parts.  By uprightness, and laying himself out for the good of the people, he would be known all over the country as a benefactor of the race.  None desire Christian instruction, for of it they have no idea.  But the people are now humbled by the scourgings they have received, and seem to be in a favorable state for the reception of the Gospel.  The gradual restoration of their former prosperity in cattle, simultaneously with instruction, would operate beneficially upon their minds.  The language is a dialect of the other negro languages in the great valley; and as many of the Batoka living under the Makololo understand both it and the Sichuana, missionaries could soon acquire it through that medium.

Monze had never been visited by any white man, but had seen black native traders, who, he said, came for ivory, not for slaves.  He had heard of white men passing far to the east of him to Cazembe, referring, no doubt, to Pereira, Lacerda, and others, who have visited that chief.

The streams in this part are not perennial; I did not observe one suitable for the purpose of irrigation.  There is but little wood; here and there you see large single trees, or small clumps of evergreens, but the abundance of maize and ground-nuts we met with shows that more rain falls than in the Bechuana country, for there they never attempt to raise maize except in damp hollows on the banks of rivers.  The pasturage is very fine for both cattle and sheep.  My own men, who know the land thoroughly, declare that it is all garden-ground together, and that the more tender grains, which require richer soil than the native corn, need no care here.  It is seldom stony.

The men of a village came to our encampment, and, as they followed the Bashukulompo mode of dressing their hair, we had an opportunity of examining it for the first time.  A circle of hair at the top of the head, eight inches or more in diameter, is woven into a cone eight or ten inches high, with an obtuse apex, bent, in some cases, a little forward, giving it somewhat the appearance of a helmet.  Some have only a cone, four or five inches in diameter at the base.  It is said that the hair of animals is added; but the sides of the cone are woven something like basket-work.  The head man of this village, instead of having his brought to a point, had it prolonged into a wand, which extended a full yard from the crown of his head.  The hair on the forehead, above the ears, and behind, is all shaven off, so they appear somewhat as if a cap of liberty were cocked upon the top of the head.  After the weaving is performed it is said to be painful, as the scalp is drawn tightly up; but they become used to it.  Monze informed me that all his people were formerly ornamented in this way, but he discouraged it.  I wished him to discourage the practice of knocking out the teeth too, but he smiled, as if in that case the fashion would be too strong for him, as it was for Sebituane.