496 BEE HUNTERS AND THEIR BIRD. 



such coarse food as could be picked up here aud there, it was 

 bad to be robbed of the last article which gave him any sort 

 of satisfaction. " The loss," he said, " affected me more than 

 any one could imagine." But every day brought so many ills 

 that there was hardly time for more than a thought about each. 

 From the town of Kavimba a man had volunteered his services 

 as guide : only the next day he asked for the cloth which he was 

 to receive that he might wear it, as his bark cloth was a miser- 

 able covering ; no sooner had he received it than he watched his 

 chance and bolted on the first opportunity. 



Being thus left to their own judgment they pressed on, fol- 

 lowing as nearly as possible the track of a travelling party of 

 Babisa, and the afternoon of the 27th of December reached the 

 hills on the north, where the Nyamazi rises ; and after passing 

 up the bed of a rivulet for some time began the ascent, of which 

 he says : "At the bottom and in the rivulet the shingle stratum 

 was sometimes fifty feet thick, then as we ascended we met mica 

 schist tilted on edge, then gray gneiss, and last an igneous trap 

 among quartz rocks, with a greal deal of bright mica and talc 

 in them. On resting near the top of the first ascent two honey 

 hunters came to us. They were using the honey-guide as an 

 aid ; the bird came to us as they arrived, waited quietly during 

 the half-hour they smoked and chatted, and then went on with 

 them." 



This extraordinary bird flies from tree to tree in front of the 

 hunter, chirruping loudly, and will not be content till it arrives 

 at the spot where the bees' nest is ; it then waits quietly till the 

 honey is taken, and feeds on the broken morsels of comb which 

 fall to its share. 



Near sunset the party encamped by water on the cool height 

 and made their shelter for the night. A few extracts from the 

 last journal will serve better to convey the true picture of the 

 weary, laborious life which the great man was leading than any 

 version of it we could give, and will also serve better to reveal 

 the real spirit of the man. 



"The next day," he writes, "three men, going to hunt bees, 

 came to us as we were starting and assured us that Moerwa's 

 was near. The first party had told us the same thing, and so 

 often have we gone long distances as ' pafupi (near)/ when in 



