384 THE ZAMBEZIAN CLIMATE 



slight variation, from April to November. They 

 are, as I have said, pleasant and healthy in the 

 extreme. Now the traveller and hunter of big 

 game make their appearance ; the deciduous trees 

 are leafless ; the grasses dry, yellow, and ready for 

 the chance spark or deliberate act which, with the 

 aid of a steady breeze, will turn vast expanses of 

 golden grass-lands into so many hideous, bare 

 deserts of heat-tremulous black. All nature seems 

 to be at a standstill, hibernating, waiting for the 

 warm breath of spring to thaw the congealed sap 

 in the slumbering tree-trunks. The rivers are low. 

 Where, but a few short months since, wide, watery 

 expanses rushed headlong towards the sea, their 

 clay-coloured waters swirhng down in a relentless 

 grip great islands of marsh grasses, village debris 

 of various kinds, telling of sudden freshets and 

 quick disaster, great tree-trunks, and masses of 

 undergrowth, there now remain but tranquil, placid 

 channels, flowing smilingly at the bottom of steep, 

 cliff'-hke banks. The morning grasses are heavy 

 with great drops of dew, and dense, white fogs, not 

 unlike the " smokes " of the Guinea Coast, occur 

 often, and frequently remain undispelled until nine 

 or ten o'clock, provoking an astonishing amount of 

 fluent profanity from the masters of the helpless 

 river steamers. A very large proportion of the 

 trees have now no leaves whatever ; the grass-fires 

 have devastated the face of the country, and left 

 but the seared and blackened skeletons of grass- 

 canes, of bushes, and shrubs. Beneath one's feet a 

 raffle of fallen forest foliage, dry as so many chips, 

 swirls about in the breeze, and the atmosphere, as 



