CuAP.XXVI.l SOUTHERN AFRICA. 231 



leopards were reported by the savages to be very 

 abundant; and accordingly, on the 15th November, 

 having previously cleared aw^ay several of the trees, 

 we crossed over to the north side of the Cashan 

 mountains, by a perilous and barely practicable 

 path. The waggons were several times only pre- 

 vented from being dashed to pieces by means of 

 guy-ropesj which fortunately preserved their equi- 

 librium, and we were enabled to encamp on the 

 western banks of the Limpopo, some distance below 

 the point where it winds through the bowels of the 

 mountains, which rise on either hand in abrupt 

 precipices, as though torn asunder by some mighty 

 convulsion of nature. Here the country again as- 

 sumes a more level character^, but is broken to the 

 eastward by detached hills and low ridges, imper- 

 ceptibly increasing in importance, until they grow 

 into a great range of mountains, known to the natives 

 as the Mural. These may be said to take their 

 origin about one degree north of the parallel of 

 Delagoa, assuming a nearly northerly direction, and 

 dividing the tracts occupied by the Baquaina and 

 Babariri. During the rainy season especially, they 

 are infested by a large species of gad-fly, nearly 

 the size of a honey-bee, the bite of which, like that 

 of a similar pest in*Abyssinia, proves fatal to cattle. 

 A desire to escape the officious visits of these des- 

 tructive insects, whose persecutions relieved us of 

 two of our oxen, soon obliged us to abandon the 

 willow-fringed river, which threads the mountains 

 for a considerable distance ; and, after crossing the 



