66 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. VIII. 



idea of my locality ; but returning to my horse, I led 

 him in what I believed to be a north-easterly di- 

 rection, knowing, from a sketch of the country which 

 had been given me by our excellent friend Mr. 

 Moffat, and which, together with drawing materials, 

 I carried about me, that that course would eventually 

 bring me to the Meritsane. After dragging my 

 weary horse nearly the whole of the day under a 

 burning sun, my flagging spirits were at length 

 revived by the appearance of several villages. Un- 

 der other circumstances, I should have avoided in- 

 tercourse with their inhospitable inmates, but dying 

 with thirst, I eagerly entered each in succession, 

 and to my inexpressible disappointment, found them 

 deserted. The same evidence existing of their 

 having been recently inhabited, I shot a hartebeest, 

 hi the hope that the smell of meat would as visual 

 attract some straggler to the spot. But no. The 

 keen-sighted vultures, that were my only attendants, 

 descended in multitudes, but no woolly-headed negro 

 appeared to dispute the prey. In many of the trees 

 I observed large thatched houses resembling hay- 

 stacks ; and under the impression that these had 

 been erected in so singular a position by the natives 

 as a measure of security against the lions, whose 

 recent tracks I distinguished in every direction, I 

 ascended more than one in the hope of at least find- 

 ing some vessel containing water. Alas ! they prov- 

 ed to be the habitations of large communities of 

 social grosbeaks,* those winged republicans of 

 *Z.ojja Socia. Delineated in the African Views. 



