164 ZAMBEZIAN FLORA 



beautiful and delicate section of the whole wide 

 field of natural science. Conceive if you can the 

 class of mind which would endow a pretty delicate 

 creeper with such a name as Tryphostemma 

 sandersoni, or that graceful if somewhat common 

 form among the Ficoidese the Mesembryanthemum 

 edule. An especially unhappy fate in the hereafter 

 should be reserved for the perpetrators of wrongs 

 such as these, and we cannot help feeling a natural 

 regret that we shall not have an opportunity of 

 witnessing the punishment which must naturally 

 overtake them. Mesembryanthemum ! Why, it is 

 like handling some rare butterfly with the kitchen 

 tongs. 



Africa has, so far as its southern and south 

 central portions are concerned, an unfortunate and 

 wholly unjust reputation. People who have visited 

 these parts of the continent will tell you that there 

 are no sweet-smelling flowers, or song birds, or 

 rivers with water in them. These libels, however, 

 are circulated without malice, and remind one of 

 the description given by some wanderer of im- 

 perfect perception who, being interrogated as to 

 what had impressed him most on his travels through 

 South Africa, is reported to have replied that the 

 rivers contained no water, the birds never sang, the 

 flowers were scentless, and the name of every dog 

 was " Voetsac," * but that when you called him he 

 ran away. The person who gave the foregoing as 

 the fruit of his intelligent observations must have 

 been one of the many who travel during the depth 

 of the African winter season, and therefore naturally 



* Voetsac, meaning " Get out,'' " Clear out." 



