Page:Lake Ngami.djvu/492

484 is also of frequent occurrence; and many of the natives bear marks of the small-pox. Like the Lake district, the Teoge and the surrounding country is visited by a dangerous fever, which carries off many of the natives.

North of the Bayeye country we find the Matsanyana, but I have not been able to ascertain whether these people form a distinct nation.

Still further north, that is, beyond the Matsanyana, we hear of the Bavicko (or Wavicko) nation, whose capital is called Libèbé, from which also the chief derives his name. The Griquas, whom I mentioned when speaking of the watersheds of the Lake, and whom I met and conversed with on the subject, say that the country about Libèbé is flat and thickly overgrown with bush, occasionally relieved by large isolated trees, and that the Teoge is there of great width and studded with beautiful islands, on which the natives chiefly dwell.

The Bavicko are represented as an industrious and honest people of agricultural habits. Their mode of dress resembles that of the Moviza (a great trading nation in the interior of the East Coast, and west of the Portuguese settlement). Timbo, who was well acquainted with the appearance of the Moviza, on hearing a description of the Bavicko, mistook them for the former nation. The latter have some slight knowledge of metallurgy. Iron they procure easily and in abundance from their neighbors; but, from all I can gather, this ore does not seem to be indigenous to their own country.

Libèbé appears to be the centre of a great inland trade. Among other tribes that repair here for the purpose of commerce are the Mambari, a race probably resident in the vicinity of the new Portuguese settlement, Little Fish Bay. A strong argument in favor of this supposition is, that the Griquas, lately alluded to, and who found a party of these men at Libèbé, were informed by them that their tribe was visited by two different white nations: by one of them—