1866.] MOERWA. ELEPHANT HUNTING. 107 



30^ December. — Marched for Chitemba's, because it is 

 said he has not fled from the Mazitu, and therefore has 

 food to spare. While resting, Moerwa, with all his force of 

 men, women, and dogs, came up, on his way to hunt elephants. 

 The men were furnished with big spears, and their dogs are 

 used to engage the animal's attention while they spear it ; 

 the women cook the meat and make huts, and a smith goes 

 with them to mend any spear that may be broken. 



We pass over level plateaux on which the roads are 

 •wisely placed, and do not feel that we are travelling in a 

 mountainous region. It is all covered with dense forest, 

 which in many cases is pollarded, from being cut for bark 

 cloth or for hunting purposes. Masuko fruit aboimds. From 

 the cisalpinse and gum-copal trees bark cloth is made. 



We now come to large masses of ha?matite, which is often 

 .ferruginous : there is conglomerate too, many quartz pebbles 

 being intermixed. It seems as if when the lakes existed in 

 the lower lands, the higher levels gave forth great quan- 

 tities of water from chalybeate fountains, which deposited 

 this iron ore. Grey granite or quartz with talc in it or 

 gneiss lie under the hoematite. 



The forest resounds with singing birds, intent on nidifica- 

 tion. Francolins abound, but are wild. " Whip-poor-wills," 

 ,and another bird, which has a more laboured treble note and 

 voice — "Oh, oh, oh!" Gay flowers blush unseen, but the 

 people have a good idea of what is eatable and what not. I 

 looked at a woman's basket of leaves which she had collected 

 for supper, and it contained eight or ten kinds, with mush- 

 rooms and orchidaceous flowers. We have a succession of 

 showers to-day, from N.E. and E.N.E. We are uncertain 

 when we shall come to a village, as the Babisa will not tell 

 us where they are situated. In the evening we encamped 

 beside a little rill, and made our shelters, but we had so 

 little to eat that I dreamed the night long of dinners I had 

 eaten, and might have been eating. 



