We left Mosi-oa-tunya on the 27th, and slept close to the village of Bakwini.  It is built on a ridge of loose red soil, which produces great crops of mapira and ground-nuts; many magnificent mosibe-trees stand near the village.  Machimisi, the headman of the village, possesses a herd of cattle and a large heart; he kept us company for a couple of days to guide us on our way.

We had heard a good deal of a stronghold some miles below the Falls, called Kalunda.  Our return path was much nearer the Zambesi than that of our ascent,—­in fact, as near as the rough country would allow,—­but we left it twice before we reached Sinamane’s, in order to see Kalunda and a Fall called Moomba, or Moamba.  The Makololo had once dispossessed the Batoka of Kalunda, but we could not see the fissure, or whatever it is, that rendered it a place of security, as it was on the southern bank.  The crack of the Great Falls was here continued:  the rocks are the same as further up, but perhaps less weather-worn—­and now partially stratified in great thick masses.  The country through which we were travelling was covered with a cindery-looking volcanic tufa, and might be called “Katakaumena.”

The description we received of the Moamba Falls seemed to promise something grand.  They were said to send up “smoke” in the wet season, like Mosi-oa-tunya; but when we looked down into the cleft, in which the dark-green narrow river still rolls, we saw, about 800 or 1000 feet below us, what, after Mosi-oa-tunya, seemed two insignificant cataracts.  It was evident that Pitsane, observing our delight at the Victoria Falls, wished to increase our pleasure by a second wonder.  One Mosi-oa-tunya, however, is quite enough for a continent.

We had now an opportunity of seeing more of the Batoka, than we had on the highland route to our north.  They did not wait till the evening before offering food to the strangers.  The aged wife of the headman of a hamlet, where we rested at midday, at once kindled a fire, and put on the cooking-pot to make porridge.  Both men and women are to be distinguished by greater roundness of feature than the other natives, and the custom of knocking out the upper front teeth gives at once a distinctive character to the face.  Their colour attests the greater altitude of the country in which many of them formerly lived.  Some, however, are as dark as the Bashubia and Barotse of the great valley to their west, in which stands Sesheke, formerly the capital of the Balui, or Bashubia.

The assertion may seem strange, yet it is none the less true, that in all the tribes we have visited we never saw a really black person.  Different shades of brown prevail, and often with a bright bronze tint, which no painter, except Mr. Angus, seems able to catch.  Those who inhabit elevated, dry situations, and who are not obliged to work much in the sun, are frequently of a light warm brown, “dark but comely.”  Darkness of colour is probably partly caused by the