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Smith, as it has no disagreeable smell. This variety annually leaves the water with so much regularity for the deposit of its eggs, that the natives decide on the time of sowing their seed by its appearance. JULY 27TH. We reached the town of Libonta, and were received with demonstrations of joy such as I had never witnessed before.

The Donkeys Influence among the Natives "Food fit for a Chief" Parting Words of Mamire Motibe's Excuses. On the 31st of July we parted with our kind Libonta friends. We planted some of our palm-tree seeds in different villages of this valley. They began to sprout even while we were there, but, unfortunately, they were always destroyed by the mice which swarm in every hut.

The numbers of large game above Libonta are prodigious, and they proved remarkably tame. Eighty-one buffaloes defiled in slow procession before our fire one evening, within gunshot; and herds of splendid elands stood by day, without fear, at two hundred yards distance.

In accordance with the advice of my Libonta friends, I did not fail to reprove "my child Sekeletu" for his marauding. This was not done in an angry manner, for no good is ever achieved by fierce denunciations. Motibe, his father-in-law, said to me, "Scold him much, but don't let others hear you."

When waiting, on one occasion, for the other canoes to come up, I felt no inclination to leave the one I was in; but my head boatman, Mashauana, told me never to remain on board while so much vegetable matter was floating down the stream. 17TH DECEMBER. At Libonta.

On the 11th and 12th we were detained by incessant rains, and so heavy I never saw the like in the south. I had a little tapioca and a small quantity of Libonta meal, which I still reserved for worse times. The patience of my men under hunger was admirable; the actual want of the present is never so painful as the thought of getting nothing in the future.

One day we passed some Barotse lads who had speared an alligator, and were waiting in expectation of its floating soon after. The meat has a strong musky odor, not at all inviting for any one except the very hungry. When we had gone thirty or forty miles above Libonta we sent eleven of our captives to the west, to the chief called Makoma, with an explanatory message.

We were detained for days together collecting contributions of fat and butter, according to the orders of Sekeletu, as presents to the Balonda chiefs. Much fever prevailed, and ophthalmia was rife, as is generally the case before the rains begin. Some of my own men required my assistance, as well as the people of Libonta.

One month after he descended the Chobe, reached the Zambezi, entered Naniele, visited Katonga and Libonta, arrived at the confluence of the Zambezi and the Leeba, formed the project of ascending by that watercourse as far as the Portuguese possessions of the west, and, after nine weeks' absence, returned to Linyanti to make preparations.

A small loaf, made from nearly the last morsel of maize-meal from Libonta, was my stock, and our friends from Masiko were still more destitute; yet we all rejoiced so much at their arrival that we resolved to spend a day with them.