I learn that there is another hot fountain in the Baloba country, called Fungwe; this, with Kapira and Vana, makes three hot fountains in this region.

Some people were killed in my path to Casembe, so this was an additional argument against my going that way.

Some Banyamwezi report a tribe—­the Bonyolo—­that extract the upper front teeth, like Batoka; they are near Loanda, and Lake Chipokola is there, probably the same as Kinkonza.  Feeling my way.  All the trees are now pushing out fresh young leaves of different colours:  winds S.E.  Clouds of upper stratum N.W.

29th August, 1868.—­Kaskas began to-day hot and sultry.  This will continue till rains fall.  Rumours of wars perpetual and near; and one circumstantial account of an attack made by the Bause.  That again contradicted. (31st August, 1868.) Rain began here this evening, quite remarkable and exceptional, as it precedes the rains generally off the watershed by two months at least:  it was a thunder shower, and it and another on the evening of the second were quite partial.

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[As we shall see, he takes advantage of his late experience to work out an elaborate treatise on the climate of this region, which is exceedingly important, bearing, as it does, upon the question of the periodical floods on the rivers which drain the enormous cistern-lakes of Central Africa.]

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The notion of a rainy zone, in which the clouds deposit their treasures in perpetual showers, has received no confirmation from my observations.  In 1866-7, the rainfall was 42 inches.  In 1867-8, it amounted to 53 inches:  this is nearly the same as falls in the same latitudes on the West Coast.  In both years the rains ceased entirely in May, and with the exception of two partial thunder showers on the middle of the watershed, no rain fell till the middle and end of October, and then, even in November, it was partial, and limited to small patches of country; but scarcely a day passed between October and May without a good deal of thunder.  When the thunder began to roll or rumble, that was taken by the natives as an indication of the near cessation of the rains.  The middle of the watershed is the most humid part:  one sees the great humidity of its climate at once in the trees, old and young, being thickly covered with lichens; some flat, on the trunks and branches; others long and thready, like the beards of old men waving in the wind.  Large orchids on the trees in company with the profusion of lichens are seen nowhere else, except in the mangrove swamps of the sea-coast.