Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/331

 THE BABOTSE EMPIRE. 961 Holub visited the Barotee kingdom in 1875, as many as eighteen large nationK. subdivided into over a hundred • secondary tribes, were represented by their dele> giites ut the court of the sovereign und the regent his sister. Moreover, u Lirge number of fugitives from other tribes — Matebeles, liumungwutos, Makalukos — dwelt within the borders of the state, to which they paid tribute. From the Zambcse and Chobe confluence to the northern frontiers there was reckoned a distance equal to a journey of from fifteen to twenty dayH, and the superficial area of the whole kingdom exceeded 100,000 square miles, with a population of pro- bably about a million. Each of the tribes in the vast empire speaks its own dialect, but Scsuto, that is — the language of their exterminated Makololo masters — serves as the common medium of general intercourse, and as the official language of the state. The Makololos have disappeared, but their inheritance has remained, and thanks to them the range of the Sesuto tongue has been enlarged tenfold. The administrative system of the Barotse state is also, at least to some extent, a legacy from the Makololos ; but the penal code and many practices are of an extremely sanguinary character, so much so that " no one grows old in the Barotue country." According to Serpa Pinto, the king is assisted by a council of three ministers, one for war and the two others for the foreign affairs of the south and the west, the latter having the management of all negotiations with the Portuguese on the west coast, the former treating with the English and Dutch powers in South Africa. The regent, sister or mother of the sovereign, and like the king saluted with the title of " Lion," marries whom she pleases, her husband taking the title of "Son-in-law of the Nation." Europeans are barely tolerated in the country, and allowed to cross the Zambese only at a single point. Nevertheless their influ- ence is considerable. European clothes are now worn by most of the natives, having almost everywhere supplanted the national dress of tanned skins and capacious robes or skirts. The Barotses, properly so called, inhabit the banks of the main stream between the Kabompo and Chobe confluences. They are skilled boatmen, with chest and shoulders highly developed compared with the lower members ; but leprosy is a prevalent disease amongst them. The Zambese supplies them with abundance of food, including besides fish, the hippopotamus, the flesh of which animal is highly esteemed. Special hunters are also stationed at intervals along the banks of the river and lateral channels, whose duty it is to keep the royal household well supplied with this game. The alluvial soil in this section of the river exceeds in fertility all other parts of the valley, and yields magnificent crops of grain and vegetables. Cattle also thrive well on the pasturages of the bottom lands, which skirt the escarpments of the plateau to the east and west. The part of the fluvial valley peopled by the Barotses is in some places at least 30 miles broad, and throughout the whole of this territory "famine is unknown" (Livingstone). In order to protect themselves from the annual inundations, which enrich their land and make it another Egypt, distinct tribeo subject to the Barotse.
 * In one place Holub npeaks of " eighty-three," but in another he eniunevatea one hundred and four