The geology of Barotseland may be summarized thus: In the north-west, north, east and south-east the surface is a red laterite clay, superimposed on granite which in the higher portions obtrudes itself in mountains and hills. The central valley and most of the south-west has a heavy, white, sandy soil, but with a good deal of alluvium laid down on the sand by river courses or in the bed of the ancient lake. There is a basaltic outbreak in the neighbourhood of the Victoria Falls, but this lies outside Barotseland limits. In the eastern half of the country gold, copper—connected with the copper deposits of Katanga—tin, lead, zinc and iron have been discovered, chiefly in regions between four and five thousand feet in altitude. * * * * * In this little book and in the first and second volumes of my _Comparative Studies of the Bantu Languages_ (fed from much the same source) our information concerning Barotseland and its peoples has been greatly implemented. But that fact does not conceal from us that the country, its zoology, botany, peoples, and even its geography (to say nothing of geology) are still far too little known. The portions that lie to the west and south-west of the main Zambezi remain almost _un_known and undescribed, or are only made known to us in works of travel fifty, sixty, seventy years old, which even if accurate in what particulars they give were written at a much lower level of knowledge than exists concerning Africa in general to-day. We know more about Eastern Angola than we do of Western Barotseland. Recent discoveries concerning Angolan Antelopes, Zebras, Rhinoceroses, and other mammalian types make us eager to ascertain how these discoveries affect Barotseland _west_ of the Zambezi. How far do the Bushman tribes extend into Western Barotseland? Are they of normal human stature, like those of South-East Angola? Do they speak languages akin to the Bushman tongues and use clicks? Have they greatly projecting brows like certain Bushmen of the Northern Kalahari, or are they without brow projections at all but very prognathous in the lower part of the face? What is the full tale of the Bantu tribes of Western Barotseland? Are there still unrecorded Bantu languages on the Kwando river? Do the tongues recorded south-west of the Upper Zambezi by Livingstone, seventy-two years ago, still exist?