96 MOWANA TREES. 



vide needed food by taking advantage of the desperate tameness 

 of the herds which gathered in easy range of the well. It 

 ought to be so always. Whoever gees forth in civilized 

 or heathen lands to represent Christ in presenting his gospel 

 ought to be animated with his wonderful spirit of tenderness. 

 It is not mean to be touched by the woes of a dog. It is mag- 

 nanimous to respect the helplessness of a worm. 



Quitting this scene, the party pressed northward across the 

 great Ntwetwe pan, and rested under the shade of one of the 

 magnificent mowana trees which rise loftily all over this broad 

 area, of calcareous tufa, with its slight carpet of soil. The tree 

 under whose branches they rested, three feet from the ground, 

 was eighty -five feet in circumference. In all the forests and 

 plains of the continent nothing equals the wonderful vitality of 

 these mowana trees. Livingstone declared that he "would 

 back one of them against a dozen floods." It does not yield 

 its life to the decay within or the injuries without. It grows 

 on and wears its crown of foliage as proudly when the capacious 

 cavities within offer shelter to men and beasts as when its heart 

 was firm and healthful. It may have its coat of bark stripped 

 off year by year, and year by year it somehow weaves another 

 coat and wraps itself anew. The flames may twine about it 

 and sear and blacken it : it will not die. Dr. Livingstone 

 testifies that he saw one which continued growing in length, 

 even after it had been cut down, while it lay stretched upon the 

 ground. There is only one thing to be done with them ; that 

 is, let them alone. The natives say, the " lightning hates it," 

 and decline even the favor of its shade. 



From this resting-place, travelling a few miles, the party 

 reached Rapesh, where the inevitable Bushmen were found 

 again. Their chief was Horoye, and he headed a nobler class 

 of men, better specimens in every respect than their namesakes 

 of the desert ; a jovial set, who love to live, and decline to 

 follow their departed friends "just yet," although they recog- 

 nize a future state. They love the hunting-ground of the 

 present, and their country flows abundantly with water; that 

 is enough for them. These men stand for courageous, because 

 they kill elephants. But nowhere in Africa do the natives 

 exhibit such courage in hunting as is displayed by their civil- 



