498 GONYE— END OF WINTER. Chap. XXV. 



Masliauana out into the river : the rest of us sprang to the shore, 

 which was only about ten yards off. Glancing back, I saw her 

 come to the surface a short way off, and look to the canoe, as if 

 to see if she had done much mischief. It was a female, whose 

 young one had been speared the day before. No damage was 

 done, except wetting person and goods. Tins is so unusual an 

 occurrence, when the precaution is taken to coast along the shore, 

 that my men exclaimed, " Is the beast mad ?" There were eight 

 of us in the canoe at the time, and the shake it received, shows 

 the immense power of this animal in the water. 



On reaching Gonye, Mokwala the head-man having presented 

 me with a tusk, I gave it to Pitsane, as he was eagerly collecting 

 ivory for the Loanda market. The rocks of Gonye are reddish 

 grey sandstone, nearly horizontal, and perforated by madrepores, 

 the holes showing the course of the insect in different directions. 

 The rock itself has been impregnated with iron, and that hardened, 

 forms a glaze on the surface — an appearance common to many of 

 the rocks of this country. 



August 22nd. — This is the end of winter. The trees which line 

 the banks begin to bud and blossom ; and there is some show of 

 the influence of the new sap, which will soon end in buds that 

 push off the old foliage by assuming a very bright orange colour. 

 This orange is so bright that I mistook it for masses of yellow 

 blossom. There is every variety of shade in the leaves, yellow, 

 purple, copper, liver-colour, and even inky black. 



Having got the loan of other canoes from Mpololo, and three 

 oxen as provision for the way, which made the number we had 

 been presented with hi the Barotse valley amount to thirteen, we 

 proceeded down the river towards Sesheke, and were as much 

 struck as formerly with the noble river. The whole scenery is 

 lovely, though the atmosphere is murky in consequence of the 

 continuance of the smoky tinge of winter. 



This peculiar tinge of the atmosphere was observed every 

 winter at Kolobeng, but it was not so observable in Londa as in 

 the south, though I had always considered that it was owing to 

 the extensive burnings of the grass, in which hundreds of miles of 

 pasturage are annually consumed. As the quantity burnt in the 

 north is very much greater than in the south, and the smoky 

 tinge of winter was not observed, some other explanation than 



