CURIOUS CUSTOM OF REBUKING THE LION. 405 



it at the time. The words, as nearly as I can remember, 

 were " mighty lord, why do you come and disturb 

 my cattle, or have you become too old and lazy to hunt, 

 or are you turned woman-hearted ? Go your way, the 

 quagga and hartebeest are yours, the koodoo and the 

 buffalo : they await you while you lose your time here ; 

 leave, I say, or we shall think you no better than the 

 hyaena, whose associate you will become." 



This man must have gone quite close to the lions, 

 and yet he had no other protection than the glowing 

 coal at the end of a stick not over an inch and a half in 

 diameter. 



After an early dinner, and a right good one it was, 

 for I had coran and several brace of Nam aqua partridge 

 and stein-buck boiled into rags to make soup, we waited 

 for the hour of trecking, I to find my way to Soshong 

 beyond the Bamanwatto Hills, my new friends to treck, 

 treck, treck, till they had passed the northern limits of 

 the Great Thirst Land. But before the moment of 

 parting comes we have still a little time on our hands, 

 which we shall endeavour to make the most of. 



Here in this vicinity occur the first specimens to be 

 met with, going from the south, of that mammoth of the 

 vegetable kingdom, the baobab tree, supposed by some to 

 have had its existence prior to the Flood. It is far from 

 a handsome production, resembling, the more I look 

 at it, an inverted beetroot or carrot than anything else 

 I know. Its height is seldom more than eighty or 

 ninety feet, but from the enormous thickness of the 

 stem, and the few branches that it possesses trees in 

 themselves it does not look half so high. 



The fruit has the appearance of an unhusked cocoa- 

 nut, but instead of the exterior being brown it is green, 



