M TRAVELS IN 
darles of this delightful country. The fide* 
of thefe mountains are covered with large 
trees, and among thefe we fell in with a pan- 
ther, which my dogs roufed from its den 
among the rocks. In an inftant, and at one 
leap, it fprang to the top of a tree, twenty feet 
in height above them ; and as the briars and 
fallen trunks which lay extended on the ground 
retarded the quicknefs of my pace, I could 
not get within reach of it time enough to fire, 
which afforded it an opportunity of efcaping 
from tree to tree, as faft as it could have done 
on an open plain. Befides the antelopes of 
which I have fpoken, we found in the canton 
of the Twenty-four Rivers a number of zebras, 
pafans, bubels, and oftriches, which muft be 
hunted on horfeback ; but the ground is fo 
covered with buflies, and fo encumbered by 
the arched nefts built there by the termites, 
or white ants, that it is very dangerous to 
purfue them full fpeed, as the velocity of thefe 
animals jrequires, 
Naturalifts have for fome timepaft made us 
acquainted with this fpecies of ants, which, ad- 
vancing under ground like miners, confl;ru(£t 
for themfelves, at certain diftances, a fort of 
dom^ 
