Many had sixty or eighty feet of clean straight trunk, and beautiful flowers adorned the ground beneath them.
Ascending the opposite side, we came, in two hours' time, to another valley, equally beautiful, and with a stream also in its centre.

It may seem mere trifling to note such an unimportant thing as the occurrence of a valley, there being so many in every country under the sun; but as these were branches of that in which the Kasai or Loke flows, and both that river and its feeders derive their water in a singular manner from the valley sides, I may be excused for calling particular attention to the more furrowed nature of the country.
At different points on the slopes of these valleys which we now for the first time entered, there are oozing fountains, surrounded by clumps of the same evergreen, straight, large-leaved trees we have noticed along the streams.

These spots are generally covered with a mat of grassy vegetation, and possess more the character of bogs than of fountains.
They slowly discharge into the stream below, and are so numerous along both banks as to give a peculiar character to the landscape.

These groups of sylvan vegetation are generally of a rounded form, and the trunks of the trees are tall and straight, while those on the level plains above are low and scraggy in their growth.

There can be little doubt but that the water, which stands for months on the plains, soaks in, and finds its way into the rivers and rivulets by percolating through the soil, and out by these oozing bogs; and the difference between the growth of these trees, though they be of different species, may be a proof that the stuntedness of those on the plains is owing to being, in the course of each year, more subjected to drought than moisture.
Reaching the village of Kabinje, in the evening he sent us a present of tobacco, Mutokuane or "bang" ('Cannabis sativa'), and maize, by the man who went forward to announce our arrival, and a message expressing satisfaction at the prospect of having trade with the coast.