Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/330

 260 ' SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. residence, with the whole village, is abandoned, the natives rebuilding their huts and reclaiming fresh land in another district. Although unknown to European e-xplorers, the Ba-Lundas long maintained indirect commercial relations with the Portuguese of the western seaboard through the agency of the Biheno people. The beeswax exported from Loanda and Bcnguella comes for the most part from their forests, where it is collected in bark hives suspended from the trees and protected by terrible fetishes from the rapacity of marauders. The Barotse Empire. The various tribes inhabiting the Zambese valley properly so called, below the confluence of the Liba with the Kabombo, have been united in a single state among the South African peoples variously known by the name of Barotse (Ba-Rots^), Ungenge, Lui, or Luina. Sebituani, founder of this empire, was a Basuto con- queror, who led a host of warriors victoriously across the whole region comprised between the Orange and the Zambese, enrolling under his banner all the young men of the conquered tribes along the line of march. On reaching the Zambese and Chobc confluence, Sebituani and his Makololo followers took possession of this peninsular region, which being protected by vast swampy tracts served as the centre of the new kingdom, and was soon peopled by at least three hundred thousand souls. It was here that Livingstone visited them, and their capital, Linyati, a town of over fifteen thousand inhabitants, situated on the north bank of the Chobe, became the centre of his explorations in all the surrounding Zambese lands. But the missionaries who succeeded him met with less favour, and several of them having succumbed either to the effects of the climate or to poison, the report was spread abroad that some calamity was pending over the Makololos. The storm was in truth already gathering. The Luinas, or Barotses properly so called, who had reluctantly submitted to their foreign rulers, now broke into revolt, and falling suddenly on the unsuspecting Makololos, massacred them almost to the last man. Two only, with their wives and children, were said to have been spared in the whole peninsula. Terror-stricken by the news of the overwhelming disaster, the Mako- lolos dwelling south of the Chobe fled westwards and sought a refuge amongst the Ba-Toanas settled on the banks of Lake Ngami. By them they were received with apparent friendship, but as soon as the unarmed suppliants ventured within the royal enclosure, they were suddenly attacked and slaughtered by the Ba-Toana warriors. Thus perished the Makololo nation. Their women were distributed amongst the conquerors, and their children brought up under other names in the vilhiges and encampments of the Barotses. But despite this change of masters, the kingdom founded by Sebituani was maintained at least south of the Chobe. The Barotses themselves did not venture to cross the line of natural defence formed by the surrounding marshes. But north of this limit they took the place of the Makololos as rulers of the land, and soon after annexed the whole of the Mabunda (Ma-Mbunda) territory, which had been inherited by a queen too weak to maintain herself on the throne. When