THE KOMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



the river just at the mouth ; it fell backwards into 

 the torrent, and was no more seen. Extensive as 

 my travels since this day have been through these 

 beautiful mountains, and amidst all the splen- 

 did scenery 1 have looked on, I can recall none 

 so strikingly magnificent as the glacier of the 

 Granges."* 



Again ; if we wish to see the vastest of terres- 

 trial animals, it is not within the bars of a trav- 

 elling menagerie that we should look for him, nor 

 in the barbaric pomp or domestic bondage of 

 India, but in the noble forest-glens of Africa. 



Mr. Pringle has drawn a graphic sketch of such 

 a valley, two or three miles in length, surrounded 

 by a wild and bewildering region, broken into in- 

 numerable ravines, incumbered with rocks, preci- 

 pices, and impenetrable woods and jungles, among 

 lofty and sterile mountains. The valley itself is a 

 beautiful scene; it suddenly bursts on the view of 

 the traveller as he emerges from a wooded defile. 

 The slopes and sides are clothed with the succu- 

 lent spek-boom;f the bottom is an expanded 

 grassy savanna or meadow, beautifully studded 

 with mimosas, thorns, and tall evergreens, some- 

 times growing singly, sometimes in clumps and 

 groves of varying magnitude. 



Foot-tracks deeply impressed in the soft earth 

 are everywhere visible ; paths, wide and well trod- 

 den, like military roads, have been opened up 

 through the dense thorny forest, apparently im- 

 penetrable. Through one of these a numerous 

 herd of elephants suddenly appears on the scene : 

 the great bull-elephant, the patriarch of the herd, 

 marches in the van, bursting through the jungle, 

 as a bullock would through a field of hops, tread- 



* Markham, "Shooting in the Himal.," p. 57. 

 + Postulacaria afra. 

 60 



