Chap. XV. THE RIVER LONGKWE. 313 



surly buffaloes had been wandering about in a sort of miser- 

 able fellowship; their skins were diseased and scabby, as 

 if leprous, and their horns atrophied or worn down to 

 stumps — the first was killed outright, by one Jacob's shell, 

 the second died hard. There is so much difference in the 

 tenacity of life in wounded animals of the same species, 

 that the inquiry is suggested where the seat of life can be ? 

 We have seen a buffalo live long enough, after a large bullet 

 had passed right through the heart, to allow firm adherent 

 clots to be formed in the two holes. 



One day's journey above Sinamane's, a mass of mountain 

 called Gorongue, or Golongwe, is said to cross the river, and 

 the rent through which the river passes is, by native report, 

 quite fearful to behold. The country round it is so rocky, 

 that our companions dreaded the fatigue and were not much 

 to blame, if, as is probably the case, the way be worse than 

 that over which we travelled. As we trudged along over 

 the black slag-like rocks, the almost leafless trees afford- 

 ing no shade, the heat was quite as great as Europeans 

 could bear. It was 102° in the shade, and a thermometer 

 placed under the tongue or armpit showed that our blood 

 was 99-5°, or 1-5° hotter than that of the natives, which 

 stood at 98°. Our shoes, however, enable us to pass over 

 the hot burning soil better than they can. Many of those 

 who wear sandals have corns on the sides of the feet, and 

 on the heels, where the straps pass. We have seen in- 

 stances, too, where neither sandals nor shoes were worn, of 

 corns on the soles of the feet. It is, moreover, not at all 

 uncommon to see toes cocked up, as if pressed out of their 

 proper places ; at home, we should have unhesitatingly as- 

 cribed this to the vicious fashions perversely followed by our 

 shoemakers. 



The Longkwe, or, as the Makololo call it, the river of Quai, 



