£hap. XXV. GONYE— -END OF WINTER. 32$ 



will never be ill treated; there may be opposition to hia 

 doctrine, but none to himself. 



I left Naliele on the 13th of August, and while proceeding 

 down the river a female hippopotamus struck the canoe with 

 her forehead, lifting one half of it quite out of the water, so as 

 nearly to overturn it. The force of the butt she gave tilted 

 Mashauana into the river : the rest of us swam to the shore, 

 which was only about ten yards off. Glancing back, I saw 

 the animal come to the surface a short way off, and look at the 

 canoe, as if to see if she had done much mischief. This occur- 

 rence is so unusual when the precaution is taken to coast 

 along the shore, that my men exclaimed, " Is the beast mad ?" 

 It turned out that her young one had been speared the day 

 before. There were eight of us in the canoe at the time, and 

 the shake it received shows the immense power of this animal 

 in the water : no damage, however, was done beyond a wetting. 

 On reaching Gonye, Mokwala the head-man having presented 

 me with a tusk, I gave it to Pitsane, as he was eagerly col- 

 lecting ivory for the Loanda market. 



August 22nd. — It was now the end of winter. The trees 

 which lined the banks were beginning to bud and blossom ; 

 and the old foliage had assumed an orange hue of such bril- 

 liancy that I mistook it for masses of yellow blossom. The 

 leaves exhibited every variety of shade, — yellow, purple, 

 copper, liver-colour, and even inky black. From Gonye we 

 proceeded down the river towards Sesheke, and were as much 

 struck as formerly with this noble stream. The scenery is 

 lovely, though its appearance was somewhat impaired by the 

 peculiar murkiness of the atmosphere which prevails here as 

 well as more to the south during the winter, the cause of 

 which I am unable to explain. 



The amount of organic life is perfectly astonishing. AVhen 

 the river begins to rise, the Ibis religiosa comes down in flocks 

 of fifties, with prodigious numbers of other water-fowl. Some 

 of the sandbanks appeared whitened during the day with flocks 

 of pelicans, while others were brown with ducks (Anas histri- 

 onica) ; and the surface of the stream was covered with great 

 numbers of gulls (Procellaria turtur, Smith). The vast quan- 

 tity of small birds, which feed on insects, show that the river 

 teems with the more minute forms of organic life. In walk 



