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WAYFARING NOTES IN RHODESIA. 

 By R. Feank Rand. 



A BUSINESS trip took me in December, 1897, as far as Salisbury, 

 the capital of the Rhodesian territory. The route was by rail from 

 Capetown to Bulawayo (1360 miles), thence onwards to Salisbury by 

 coach, another 280 miles. There was rain, heavy tropical rain, almost 

 every day, and such weather proves trying to a collector, for, satu- 

 rated as the air is with moisture, one is apt, even with care, to lose 

 a number of specimens. Mildew attacks the specimens even within 

 one or two days, those with any succulence being the worst sufferers. 

 One tries different methods. I found placing the succulent speci- 

 mens between layers of absorbent cotton- wool fairly protective. It 

 is handiest in the form of Gamgee tissue, and in this form the thin 

 layer of gauze covering the wool prevents the cotton-fibres from 

 clmging to the specimen. Free ventilation is of course essential, 

 and I found sheets of corrugated paper, such as bottles are packed 

 m, placed at very frequent intervals between the specimens when 

 under pressure, gave good results. I was able to make no extended 

 excursions, and the following notes merely refer to short walks in 

 the neighbourhood of Bulawayo and of Salisbury, and to the strip 

 of country along the coach road connecting the two towns. 



One crosses the limits of certain species in making this journey, 

 as some of the trees noted in Bulawayo (Matabeleland province) were 

 not discoverable in Salisbury (Mashonaland province), and the con- 

 verse was likewise true. Round about Bulawayo the trees have 

 been terribly hacked about by the natives in quest of wood for fuel 

 and for hut-poles. The heaviest timber seen was in the valleys of 

 the big rivers — the timber in the open country being mostly of 

 medium size. Fairly open woodland was crossed from time to time, 

 but no dense forest. 



As to species, the trees are very mixed, although here and there 

 certain species are grouped to the exclusion of others. The willow, 

 growing by the river-banks, was the only tree noticed likely to be 

 familiar to an eye unused to any but English woodland. The spring 

 tints of many of the trees are very fine, notably those called by the 

 natives masasa, also another called machabel. Their leaves show all 

 tints of green, yellow, and pink, many of the colours being such as 

 were known a few years ago as "Liberty" shades. Certainly art 

 here only hobbies after nature. 



Clumps of large granitic or gneissic boulders tumbled in heaps 

 are a common landscape feature — the so-called kopjes. In the 

 pockets of earth in the many crevices, large and small, among these 

 rocks, growth is apt to be very luxuriant and of more tropical cast 

 than in the surrounding country ; I suppose it is that the huge 

 boulders absorb much of the sun's heat, conserving it and givmg it off 

 to the soil around, and so acting in some sort as a natural forcing- 

 house. 



Growth is also apt to be luxuriant upon old large ant (termite) 

 heaps. Besides bringing up the deep soil to the surface and 



