Chap. XXHL SCARCITY OF ANIMALS — FOKESTS. 453 



bamboo, and persevere, though no one hears the music but them- 

 selves. Others try to appear warlike by never going out of their 

 huts, except with a load of bows and arrows, or a gun ornamented 

 with a strip of hide for every animal they have shot ; and others 

 never go anywhere without a canary in a cage. Ladies may be 

 seen carefully tending little lapdogs, which are intended to be 

 eaten. Their "villages are generally in forests, and composed of 

 groups of irregularly planted brown huts, with banana and cotton 

 trees, and tobacco growing around. There is also at every hut a 

 high stage erected for drying manioc roots and meal, and elevated 

 cages to hold domestic fowls. Round baskets are laid on the 

 thatch of the huts, for the hens to lay in, and on the arrival of 

 strangers, men, women, and children ply their calling as hucksters, 

 with a great deal of noisy haggling ; all their transactions are 

 conducted with civil banter and good temper. 



My men, having the meat of the oxen which we slaughtered 

 from time to time for sale, were entreated to exchange it for 

 meal ; no matter how small the pieces offered were, it gave them 

 pleasure to deal. 



The landscape around is green, with a tint of yellow, the grass 

 loug, the paths about a foot wide, and generally worn deeply in 

 the middle. The tall overhanging grass, when brushed against 

 by the feet and legs, disturbed the lizards and mice, and occasion- 

 ally a serpent, causing a rustling amongst the herbage. There 

 are not many birds ; every animal is entrapped and eaten. Gins 

 are seen on both sides of the path every ten or fifteen yards, for 

 miles together. The time and labour required to dig up moles 

 and mice from then burrows, would, if applied to cultivation, 

 afford food for any amount of fowls or swine, but the latter are 

 seldom met with. 



We passed on through forests abounding in climbing-plants, 

 many of which are so extremely tough, that a man is required to 

 go in front with a hatchet ; and when the burdens of the carriers 

 are caught, they are obliged to cut the climbers with their teeth, 

 for no amount of tugging will make them break. The paths in 

 all these forests are so zigzag, that a person may imagine he has 

 travelled a distance of thirty miles, which, when reckoned as the 

 crow flies, may not be fifteen. 



We reached the river Moamba (lat. 9° 38' S., long. 20° 13' 34" 



