These are generally covered with wild date-trees and palmyras, and in some parts there are forests of mimosae and mopane.

Occasionally the country between the Chobe and Zambesi is flooded, and there are large patches of swamps lying near the Chobe or on its banks.

The Makololo were living among these swamps for the sake of the protection the deep reedy rivers afforded them against their enemies.
Now, in reference to a suitable locality for a settlement for myself, I could not conscientiously ask them to abandon their defenses for my convenience alone.

The healthy districts were defenseless, and the safe localities were so deleterious to human life, that the original Basutos had nearly all been cut off by the fever; I therefore feared to subject my family to the scourge.
As we were the very first white men the inhabitants had ever seen, we were visited by prodigious numbers.

Among the first who came to see us was a gentleman who appeared in a gaudy dressing-gown of printed calico.
Many of the Makololo, besides, had garments of blue, green, and red baize, and also of printed cottons; on inquiry, we learned that these had been purchased, in exchange for boys, from a tribe called Mambari, which is situated near Bihe.