A RIDE THROUGH RHINO COUNTRY 303 
it offers you. In rows of from three to eight on the end of 
each bending stem hang the beautiful yellow blossoms, 
almost four inches long. Ata few feet’s distance they look 
like Marechal Niel roses half-blown, growing on a gray 
althea bush and if you imagine an althea flower four inches 
long and pendant, with five petals that overlap each other 
(I have no botany book with me and I am ashamed to say I 
have forgotten how many petals the althea has) and so thick 
and rich in colour that the flower is solid and heavy as it 
hangs, not spread out flat along the parent stem as the 
pretty althea, but bravely swinging free, then you would have 
some idea of my nameless yellow African beauty. The pistil 
is of a rich crimson, and so waxen that even in blotting paper 
all beauty is crushed and lost if you try to dry it. The calix 
is soft green. ‘The petals area brilliant scarlet at the base. 
Like many another beautiful and interesting thing in the 
land this flower is nameless; and when some one does give it 
a name I plead for something better than an inch or more of 
hyphenated Latin! ‘There is, too, an orchid that hangs out 
now and then a flaming spot of crimson from its background 
and anchorage of cactus brush. The flowers are closely 
bunched together, about an inch and a half in length, little 
frillsof yellowon their lips. This isa pretty orchid that shriv- 
els and falls when you touch it, but if leftalone it seems some- 
how to get a good living by the side of even the warlike cactus. 
The country around here for many miles is flat and when 
the veldt is flat and has been regularly pastured by herds or 
game after the rains, blue, yellow, white and mauve flowers 
grow in patches close to the ground. One, very likea single 
primrose in shape, colour and smell, is lovely. It raises its 
two inches of height from an inconspicuous little bunch of 
gray leaves, and lives only for a day or two. 
And now, still following the river’s course toward the blue 
wooded ridges that skirt the great mountains, the whole 
aspect of things changes. The tiresome euphorbia and its 
