When we left the Chipongo on the 30th we passed among the range of hills on our left, which are composed of mica and clay slate.  At the bottom we found a forest of large silicified trees, all lying as if the elevation of the range had made them fall away from it, and toward the river.  An ordinary-sized tree standing on end, measured 22 inches in diameter:  there were 12 laminae to the inch.  These are easily counted, because there is usually a scale of pure silica between each, which has not been so much affected by the weather as the rest of the ring itself:  the edges of the rings thus stand out plainly.  Mr. Quekett, having kindly examined some specimens, finds that it is “silicified coniferous wood of the ARAUCARIAN type; and the nearest allied wood that he knows of is that found, also in a fossil state, in New South Wales.”  The numbers of large game were quite astonishing.  I never saw elephants so tame as those near the Chiponga:  they stood close to our path without being the least afraid.  This is different from their conduct where they have been accustomed to guns, for there they take alarm at the distance of a mile, and begin to run if a shot is fired even at a longer distance.  My men killed another here, and rewarded the villagers of the Chiponga for their liberality in meal by loading them with flesh.  We spent a night at a baobab, which was hollow, and would hold twenty men inside.  It had been used as a lodging-house by the Babisa.

As we approached nearer the Zambesi, the country became covered with broad-leaved bushes, pretty thickly planted, and we had several times to shout to elephants to get out of our way.  At an open space, a herd of buffaloes came trotting up to look at our oxen, and it was only by shooting one that I made them retreat.  The meat is very much like that of an ox, and this one was very fine.  The only danger we actually encountered was from a female elephant, with three young ones of different sizes.  Charging through the centre of our extended line, and causing the men to throw down their burdens in a great hurry, she received a spear for her temerity.  I never saw an elephant with more than one calf before.  We knew that we were near our Zambesi again, even before the great river burst upon our sight, by the numbers of water-fowl we met.  I killed four geese with two shots, and, had I followed the wishes of my men, could have secured a meal of water-fowl for the whole party.  I never saw a river with so much animal life around and in it, and, as the Barotse say, “Its fish and fowl are always fat.”  When our eyes were gladdened by a view of its goodly broad waters, we found it very much larger than it is even above the falls.  One might try to make his voice heard across it in vain.  Its flow was more rapid than near Sesheke, being often four and a half miles an hour, and, what I never saw before, the water was discolored and of a deep brownish-red.  In the great valley the Leeambye never becomes of this color.