69 
and also a huge water melon wliicli was a great treat, 
being most delicious and refreshing; and they also 
produced some nuts, the kernels of a small fruit called 
umganu which the elephants are particularly fond of, and 
which is supposed to intoxicate them when they eat too 
much of it. These welcome supplies we bought for a few 
beads, the water melon alone being worth a fiver. 
Swartboy shot a fine specimen of a koodoo, the head of 
which I persuaded a strange Caffre to carry back to the 
wagons for a few rings of brass wire. We also bought 
some juala, or Caffre beer, but Dubois said it was badly 
made, and certainly was to my taste undrinkable. Our 
old friend the sun, with a clear blue sky, appeared again 
about mid-day as bright as ever — a pleasant change after 
three days of damp and gloomy weather. I often see 
partridges and rabbits as well as other winged game, but, 
never carrying my fowling piece except for a stroll on 
Sunday afternoons after small birds, I have little oppor- 
tunity of shooting them. We have heard of some sea-cow 
down the river, and are looking forward to another turn 
at them. There are some curious isolated hills dotted 
about at long intervals composed entirely of rock, but to 
what cause they owe their formation I am not sufficiently 
a geologist to tell. I often wonder, not that there are so 
few inhabitants in this district, but what with the Tsetse 
'^fly," fever, barrenness of soil, and such frequent bad 
harvests, I am surprised to find any people at all. Cafires 
picks are the principal medium of exchange amongst the 
people; not used as one would suppose for tilling the 
ground, but for purchasing wives, sixty picks being the 
usual price for a better half; and as a man by selling his 
daughters can buy fresh wives, the former are looked upon 
as valuable additions to a family, while the sons are 
comparatively worthless. It is odd, too, that though the 
natives prefer the European-made picks for tilling the 
