prove most fertile, and with the mild climate and the means of irrigation at their command, seem to me to hold out a grand prospect for the future. Away in the interior of the country are vast tracts of meadow-land, often miles in extent, that are now enclosed with primæval forest, but which might be transformed into prolific fields, while the rivers might, like the Zambesi, be utilized for watering them. The tribes are all ambitious and industrious; and if once the plough shall be introduced, and a free trade opened either to the south or east, the Marutse kingdom, it may be predicted, will exhibit a rapid development.
About twelve miles from Sesheke the woods came right down to the river bank, a foretoken of the chain of hills that accompanied the stream from the Barotse valley. East of Sesheke, half way between the Makumba rapids and the mouth of the Kashteja, where the country began to rise, I had noticed a cessation of the palms and papyrus, and west of Sekhose, where the stream has a considerable fall, was the commencement of the southern Barotse rapids and the cataracts of the central Zambesi. They are caused by ridges of rocks running either straight or transversely across the river, connecting links, as it were, between the hills on either side. The peaks of these reefs made countless little islands; and the further we went the more interesting I found their variety, some being brown and bare, whilst others were overgrown with reeds, or occasionally with trees of no inconsiderable height. Within fourteen miles I counted, besides a cataract, as many as forty-four rapids. In some cases the river-bed beneath them presented a continuous, sloping surface of rock,
