20 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. I. 



climbers. This species seems to be eager for mischief; its 

 tangled limbs hang out ready to inflict injury on all passers- 

 by. Another climber is so tough it is not to be broken 

 by the fingers ; another appears at its root as a young 

 tree, but it has the straggling habits of its class, as may 

 be seen by its cords stretched some fifty or sixty feet off ; 

 it is often two inches in diameter; you cut it through at 

 one part and find it reappear forty yards off. 



Another climber is like the leaf of an aloe, but convoluted 

 as strangely as shavings from the plane of a carpenter. It 

 is dark green in colour, and Avhen its bark is taken off it is 

 beautifully striated beneath, lighter and darker green, like 

 the rings of growth on wood ; still another is a thin string 

 with a succession of large knobs, and another has its bark 

 pinched up all round at intervals so as to present a great 

 many cutting edges. One sort need scarcely be mentioned, 

 in which all along its length are strong bent hooks, placed 

 in a way that will hold one if it can but grapple with him, 

 for that is very common and not like those mentioned, which 

 the rather seem to be stragglers from the carboniferous 

 period of geologists, when Pachydermata Avriggled un- 

 scathed among tangled masses worse than these. We 

 employed about ten jolly young Makonde to deal with 

 these prehistoric plants in their own way, for they are ac- 

 customed to clearing spaces for gardens, 

 and went at the work with a will, usino- 

 tomahawks well adapted for the work. 

 They whittled away right manfully, 

 taking an axe when any trees had to 

 be cut. Their pay, arranged before- 



Toniahawk and Axe. ■., ■, i p i • 



hand, was to be one yard ol calico per 

 day : this is not much, seeing we are still so near the sea- 

 coast. Climbers and young trees melted before them like 

 a cloud before the sim ! Many more would have worked 

 than we employed, but we used the precaution of taking 



