Mosogo’s wife gave her a sufficient quantity.  Proceeding to another village standing on the spot now occupied by the water, she preferred the same demand, and was not only refused, but, when she uttered a threat for their niggardliness, was taunted with the question, “What could she do though she were thus treated?” In order to show what she could do, she began a song, in slow time, and uttered her own name, Monenga-wo-o.  As she prolonged the last note, the village, people, fowls, and dogs sank into the space now called Dilolo.  When Kasimakate, the head man of this village, came home and found out the catastrophe, he cast himself into the lake, and is supposed to be in it still.  The name is derived from “ilolo”, despair, because this man gave up all hope when his family was destroyed.  Monenga was put to death.  This may be a faint tradition of the Deluge, and it is remarkable as the only one I have met with in this country.

Heavy rains prevented us from crossing the plain in front (N.N.W.) in one day, and the constant wading among the grass hurt the feet of the men.  There is a footpath all the way across, but as this is worn down beneath the level of the rest of the plain, it is necessarily the deepest portion, and the men, avoiding it, make a new walk by its side.  A path, however narrow, is a great convenience, as any one who has traveled on foot in Africa will admit.  The virtual want of it here caused us to make slow and painful progress.

Ants surely are wiser than some men, for they learn by experience.  They have established themselves even on these plains, where water stands so long annually as to allow the lotus, and other aqueous plants, to come to maturity.  When all the ant horizon is submerged a foot deep, they manage to exist by ascending to little houses built of black tenacious loam on stalks of grass, and placed higher than the line of inundation.  This must have been the result of experience; for, if they had waited till the water actually invaded their terrestrial habitations, they would not have been able to procure materials for their aerial quarters, unless they dived down to the bottom for every mouthful of clay.  Some of these upper chambers are about the size of a bean, and others as large as a man’s thumb.  They must have built in anticipation, and if so, let us humbly hope that the sufferers by the late inundations in France may be possessed of as much common sense as the little black ants of the Dilolo plains.

Chapter 18.

The Watershed between the northern and southern Rivers—­A deep Valley—­ Rustic Bridge—­Fountains on the Slopes of the Valleys—­Village of Kabinje—­Good Effects of the Belief in the Power of Charms—­Demand for Gunpowder and English Calico—­The Kasai—­Vexatious Trick—­Want of Food—­No Game—­Katende’s unreasonable Demand—­A grave Offense—­Toll-bridge Keeper—­Greedy Guides—­Flooded Valleys—­Swim the Nyuana Loke—­Prompt