BARTER WITH NATIVES. 53 



themselves and are highly amused, but refuse them 

 as payment. Common knives are likewise refused, 

 but gun-caps taken eagerly. They like printed calico 

 better than white, which they affect to despise. The 

 outcry was for long strips of coloured stuff, and they 

 preferred the quarter of two handkerchiefs {i.e. half 

 a handkerchief in quantity), cut lengthwise, to one 

 whole one. Stayed about waggon all day. Pitched 

 tent and got things out. 



" September gtk. The night had been very mild. 

 Old Monyama came bothering early. In the course 

 of the day he kept on coming, and I gave him twenty 

 .gun-caps. Wonder of wonders, he afterwards pre- 

 sented me with a pumpkin, and I felt less hostile to 

 the old creature. He is really a miserable-looking, 

 ugly, and filthy creature. Stayed about waggon 

 again to-day. 



" September 10th. — Early breakfast, and then out 

 with the Kaffirs to shoot. One carried my ten-bore, 

 one led the dogs which I am taking out to help to 

 hunt. Went in a north-easterly direction, through 

 very fine picturesque kopjes, with blue distant 

 ranges ; the grass long and yellow, and the trees 

 grouped prettily ; some kopjes with craggy tops 

 and partially covered with evergreens, others show- 

 ing more of their stony formation. A good many 

 trees are covered with bunches of cream-coloured 

 blossoms something like ' May,' but have no leaves. 

 They remind me a little of ' Snowballs.' 1 Here and 

 there we see a tree whose leaves are brown or scarlet 



1 The flowers of the garden variety of the Guelder-Rose. 



