" BUSH-RANGERS' REST" 115 



with us a youngster named Mayindoo, whom we 

 had got when we first came to the Quito. He was 

 very black and very ugly, but a smart little boy, 

 who had worked for poor Kajimbo, the murdered 

 Portuguese trader of Cuangar. As Mayindoo was 

 wonderfully quick at understanding us, he became 

 the chief interpreter to the camp, where, with so 

 many different native languages, his services 

 were in demand. As to the native speech : first, 

 there was Sikololo, the Barotze tongue ; then 

 Mombakush, and the Quito river natives' lan- 

 guage, which again varies a good deal from the 

 latter. Rensberg spoke Sikololo well, but not 

 much Mombakush. 



We had to take great care of our horses and 

 mules, now that we had no grain for them, our 

 piccaninnies cutting large supplies of grass every 

 evening. The grass we always cut is called locally 

 harangarura — i.e. the grass of the tortoise. It is 

 a beautiful, short, cane grass, resembling the 

 Mitchell grass of Queensland, and, like it, possesses 

 the quality of an excellent feed full of nourishment, 

 even when quite dry and white. This harangarura 

 was the mainstay for our mounts the whole of 

 the time out there. 



One afternoon, ugly little Mayindoo, who had 

 been out cutting grass, came back with the report 

 that an animal had passed him in the long grass, 

 and the only description that he could give of it 

 was that it had " a big head and long tail." He 

 said he had thereupon climbed a tree, and, after 



