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. At a 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 are a 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 

 frills of yellow on their lips. This is a pretty orchid that shriv- 

 els and falls when you touch it, but if left alone 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 like a 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 



