We touched at the beautiful tree-covered island of Kalabi, opposite where Tuba-mokoro lectured the lion in our way up.  The ancestors of the people who now inhabit this island possessed cattle.  The tsetse has taken possession of the country since “the beeves were lifted.”  No one knows where these insects breed; at a certain season all disappear, and as suddenly come back, no one knows whence.  The natives are such close observers of nature, that their ignorance in this case surprised us.  A solitary hippopotamus had selected the little bay in which we landed, and where the women drew water, for his dwelling-place.  Pretty little lizards, with light blue and red tails, run among the rocks, catching flies and other insects.  These harmless—­though to new-comers repulsive—­creatures sometimes perform good service to man, by eating great numbers of the destructive white ants.

At noon on the 24th October, we found Sequasha in a village below the Kafue, with the main body of his people.  He said that 210 elephants had been killed during his trip; many of his men being excellent hunters.  The numbers of animals we saw renders this possible.  He reported that, after reaching the Kafue, he went northwards into the country of the Zulus, whose ancestors formerly migrated from the south and set up a sort of Republican form of government.  Sequasha is the greatest Portuguese traveller we ever became acquainted with, and he boasts that he is able to speak a dozen different dialects; yet, unfortunately, he can give but a very meagre account of the countries and people he has seen, and his statements are not very much to be relied on.  But considering the influence among which he has been reared, and the want of the means of education at Tette, it is a wonder that he possesses the good traits that he sometimes exhibits.  Among his wares were several cheap American clocks; a useless investment rather, for a part of Africa where no one cares for the artificial measurement of time.  These clocks got him into trouble among the Banyai:  he set them all agoing in the presence of a chief, who became frightened at the strange sounds they made, and looked upon them as so many witchcraft agencies at work to bring all manner of evils upon himself and his people.  Sequasha, it was decided, had been guilty of a milando, or crime, and he had to pay a heavy fine of cloth and beads for his exhibition.  He alluded to our having heard that he had killed Mpangwe, and he denied having actually done so; but in his absence his name had got mixed up in the affair, in consequence of his slaves, while drinking beer one night with Namakusuru, the man who succeeded Mpangwe, saying that they would kill the chief for him.  His partner had not thought of this when we saw him on the way up, for he tried to excuse the murder, by saying that now they had put the right man into the chieftainship.