SCENES OF GORGEOUS BEAUTY 165 



see nothing of the beautiful exuberant wealth of 

 colour with which the hot breath of spring and the 

 short fierce deluges of the early rains clothe the 

 entire face of the country. Nobody travels on 

 the Zambezi after September if he can possibly 

 avoid doing so. By the end of October the heat 

 is appalling throughout the entire region, but the 

 individual who finds himself capable of sustaining 

 its climatic rigours reaps a rich reward in the extra- 

 ordinary beauties which the country holds out to him. 

 Every glade has now its attraction, and some 

 an infinite variety of them. Imagine, then, a forest 

 opening, the sky a deep Mediterranean blue, and 

 the strong sunlight turning the shimmering, newly 

 born greenery of the tree tops into a tender, semi- 

 transparent, fairy-like canopy, the bushes at their 

 feet bright with the canary-coloured racemes of a 

 showy Calpurnia mingling with the waxy-white 

 blooms of the fragrant thorny Oncoba. Farther 

 on one's eye is caught by a bright smudge of 

 transparent blue, where a big-bloomed convolvulus 

 with a pale lemon centre has draped itself so closely 

 around and about the thorny dwarf iron- wood trees 

 as completely to conceal them. New tender grasses 

 are beginning to spring from the sorry, blackened 

 roots left by the winter fires, and the starry, wistful, 

 upturned faces of several kinds of Dianthus, of 

 Frankenias, and fragrant Canavalia, are uplifted 

 like so many gems in a setting of newly sprung 

 verdure. A little later on, when the rains have 

 become fairly frequent and regular, we shall see in 

 its turn, and in most prodigal abundance, the 

 waxy- white umbels of the exquisite Crinum. This 



