more to stop their yearning.”  This was irresistible.  The trading party of Sequasha, which we now met, had purchased ten large new canoes for six strings of cheap coarse white beads each, or their equivalent, four yards of calico, and had bought for the merest trifle ivory enough to load them all.  They were driving a trade in slaves also, which was something new in this part of Africa, and likely soon to change the character of the inhabitants.  These men had been living in clover, and were uncommonly fat and plump.  When sent to trade, slaves wisely never stint themselves of beer or anything else, which their master’s goods can buy.

The temperature of the Zambesi had increased 10 degrees since August, being now 80 degrees.  The air was as high as 96 degrees after sunset; and, the vicinity of the water being the coolest part, we usually made our beds close by the river’s brink, though there in danger of crocodiles.  Africa differs from India in the air always becoming cool and refreshing long before the sun returns, and there can be no doubt that we can in this country bear exposure to the sun, which would be fatal in India.  It is probably owing to the greater dryness of the African atmosphere that sunstroke is so rarely met with.  In twenty-two years Dr. Livingstone never met or heard of a single case, though the protective head-dresses of India are rarely seen.

When the water is nearly at its lowest, we occasionally meet with small rapids which are probably not in existence during the rest of the year.  Having slept opposite the rivulet Bume, which comes from the south, we passed the island of Nakansalo, and went down the rapids of the same name on the 17th, and came on the morning of the 19th to the more serious ones of Nakabele, at the entrance to Kariba.  The Makololo guided the canoes admirably through the opening in the dyke.  When we entered the gorge we came on upwards of thirty hippopotami:  a bank near the entrance stretches two-thirds across the narrowed river, and in the still place behind it they were swimming about.  Several were in the channel, and our canoe-men were afraid to venture down among them, because, as they affirm, there is commonly an ill-natured one in a herd, which takes a malignant pleasure in upsetting canoes.  Two or three boys on the rocks opposite amused themselves by throwing stones at the frightened animals, and hit several on the head.  It would have been no difficult matter to have shot the whole herd.  We fired a few shots to drive them off; the balls often glance off the skull, and no more harm is done than when a schoolboy gets a bloody nose; we killed one, which floated away down the rapid current, followed by a number of men on the bank.  A native called to us from the left bank, and said that a man on his side knew how to pray to the Kariba gods, and advised us to hire him to pray for our safety, while we were going down the rapids, or we should certainly all be