272 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



On the following mornuig, which was the 1st of July, 

 we ihspanned at dawn of day, and late in the after- 

 noon we reached Lesausau, having performed an ex- 

 tremely arduous and fatiguing march. Our route dur- 

 ing the greater part of the day lay through dense jun- 

 gle and thorny thickets, where it was necessary, to clear 

 a way with our axes hefore the wagons could pass. 

 The ground also was in many places extremely rooky, 

 and threatened the destruction of my wheels and axle- 

 trees, causing us rhuoh labor, it being indispensable to 

 remove the masses of rook to one side^ As we neared 

 Lesausau, we entered upon a broad level strath, adorned 

 throughout its length and breadth with a variety of pic- 

 turesque acacia and other trees, which stood at intervals 

 as if they had been planted by the hand of man. On 

 either side, the mountains rose abruptly from the plain, 

 and they now assumed a very bold and striking appear- 

 ance, their sides and summits consisting of huge masses 

 of rock piled one above another, some of which seemed 

 so balanced upon their exalted and narrow pedestals, 



" As if an infant's touch could urge 

 Their headlong passage down the verge." 



A light and feathery fringe of dwarfish trees and va- 

 rieties of gigantic cacti adorned the sides and upper 



enriching myself in following my favorite pursuit of elephant hunting, 

 L was feeding and making happy the starving families of hundreds of 

 the Bechuana and Bakalahari tribes, who invariably followed my wag 

 ons, and assisted me in my hunting, in numbers varying from 6fty to 

 two hundred at a time. Tljese men iff^e often accompanied by their 

 wives and families, and when an elephant, hippopotamus, or other large 

 aniinal was slain, all hands repaired to the spot, when every inch of the 

 animal was reduced to biltbngue, viz., cut into long narrow strips, and 

 hung in festoons upon poles, and dried in the sun : even the entrails 

 were not left for the vultures and bysenas, and the very bones were 

 chopped to pieces with tbeir hatchets to obtain the marrow, with which 

 they enriched their soup. 



