ANGLING ON THE LIMPOPO. 261 



younger wife, sister-in-law, and baby. As they spoke 

 only a few words of English, and I an equally limited 

 amount of Dutch, our conversation was not particularly 

 instructive, in fact, I may say it was a little mixed. 

 But for what I lacked the young trader made up ; thus 

 soon it was arranged that we should remain where we 

 were, as it was Saturday, and not treck till the following 

 afternoon. 



As the Limpopo abounds with fish, we decided after 

 lunch to try our skill in the gentle art, I promising that 

 if the ladies would join us at the river, Umganey should 

 make coffee for the party in fact, try my best to make 

 them have " a good time." My motion was carried 

 without opposition, so I had my chairs removed to the 

 water's edge, a fire lit, and everything put in order to 

 render the picnic as pleasant as possible. 



About three o'clock we commenced fishing, each 

 having his whip-stick for a rod. Our tackle was 

 primitive, and our bait a piece of fat. However, the 

 fish here were not skilled in the deceptions practised by 

 man, they bit ravenously, and consequently in a very 

 short space of time we had captured more than we 

 knew what to do with, for Kaffirs will not eat them at 

 any price. Our basket consisted of two genera, one of 

 which was what is called here the big scale, resembling 

 very much the white fish (Coregonus albus) of the United 

 States and Canada. Some of our prizes weighed 

 upwards of ten pounds, and were evidently in first-class 

 condition. The other fish were silurida of different 

 species some very large, black, and rather repulsive, 

 others bright, beautifully spotted, and silvery. When 

 the sport was at its height, a crocodile popped up his 

 ugly snout close by, but before a rifle could be brought 



