Chap. XXVII. BORDER TERRITORY. 35o 



fig family I found to be forty feet in circumference ; the heart 

 had been burned out, and some one had made a lodging in it. 

 Tho sight of the open country, with the increased altitude 

 we were attaining, was most refreshing to the spirits. The 

 country is now uninhabited, and hence game abounded. We 

 saw in the distance buffaloes, elands, hartebeest, gnus, and 

 elephants, all very tame, because undisturbed. Lions, which 

 always accompany other large animals, roared about us in the 

 moonlight, and one began to roar at me, even while it was still 

 light. The temperature was pleasant, as the rains, though not 

 universal, had fallen in many places. The thermometer stood 

 at 70° in the morning, at 90° at noon, and at 84° in the even- 

 ing. The different rocks to the westward of Kaonka's, talcose 

 gneiss, and white mica schist, generally dip towards the west, 

 but at Kaonka's large minded masses of granite, containing 

 black mica, began to appear. The outer rind of it inclines to 

 peel off, and large crystals project from the exposed surface. 



After a good shower of rain the piercing notes of the cicadas 

 are perfectly deafening; a drab-coloured cricket joins the 

 chorus with a sharp sound which seems to make the ground 

 over it thrill, and which has as little modulation as the drone 

 of a Scottish bagpipe. When cicadae, crickets, and frogs 

 unite, their music may be heard at the distance of a quarter 

 of a mile. A tree attracted my attention as new, the leaves 

 being like those of an acacia, but the ends cf the branches 

 from which they grew closely resembled oblong fir-cones. 

 The corn poppy was abundant, and many of the trees, flower- 

 ing bulbs, and plants, were identical with those in Pungo 

 Andongo. A flower, as white as the snowdrop, named by the 

 natives, from its shape, " Tlaku ea pitse " (hoof of zebra), spots 

 the sward with its beautiful pure white. A fresh crop appears 

 every morning, and if the day is cloudy they do not expand 

 till the afternoon, and in an hour or so droop and die. 1 

 carried several of the somewhat bulbous roots of this pretty 

 flower to the Mauritius. 



On the 30th we crossed the river Kalomo, here about 50 

 yards broad, and the only stream that never dries up on this 

 ridge. The current is rapid, and its course is towards the 

 south, as it joins the Zambesi at some distance below the falls. 

 The change in the direction of the streams, the Uniruesi and 



