Chap. VI. " SMOKES " — BAZIZULU. 153 



the days. A new world awakes and comes forth, more 

 numerous, if we may judge by the noise it makes, than 

 that which is abroad by sunlight. Lions and hyenas roar 

 around us, and sometimes come disagreeably near, though 

 they have never ventured into our midst. Strange birds 

 sing their agreeable songs, while others scream and call 

 harshly as if in fear or anger. Marvellous insect-sounds 

 fall upon the ear ; one, said by natives to proceed from a 

 large beetle, resembles a succession of measured musical 

 blows upon an anvil, while many others are perfectly 

 indescribable. A little lemur was once seen to leap about 

 from branch to branch with the agility of a frog ; it 

 chirruped like a bird, and is not larger than a robin red- 

 breast. Eeptiles, though numerous, seldom troubled us ; 

 only two men suffered from stings, and that very slightly, 

 during the entire journey, the one supposed that he was 

 bitten by a snake, and the other was stung by a scorpion. 



Grass-burning has begun, and is producing the blue 

 hazy atmosphere of the American Indian summer, which 

 in Western Africa is called the " smokes." Miles of fire 

 burn on the mountain-sides in the evenings, but go out 

 during the night. From their height they resemble a 

 broad zigzag line of fire in the heavens. 



We slept on the night of the 6th of July on the left 

 bank of the Chongwe, which comes through a gap in 

 the hills on our right, and is twenty yards wide. A small 

 tribe of the Bazizulu, from the south, under Dadanga, 

 have recently settled here and built a village. Some of 

 their houses are square, and they seem to be on friendly 

 terms with the Bakoa, who own the country. They, like 

 the other natives, cultivate cotton, but of a different 

 species from any we have yet seen in Africa, the staple 

 being very long, and the boll larger than what is usually 

 met with ; the seeds cohere as in the Pemambuco kind. 

 They brought the seed with them from their own country, 



