Nature and Art, Juno 1, 1866.] 
SCENE ON THE LOGIER RIVER, ZAMBESI. 
13 
large when I inspected them more closely for the purposes 
of boat-building. 
Two species of mochicheerie, with wood like red cedar, 
pleasant to work but somewhat brittle, grew plentifully on 
the lower flats. The dense foliage of one is borne aloft upon 
the spreading limbs ; that of the other is carried in tufts 
like those of the chestnut on branches that droop and then 
gracefully curve upward again, bearing a small fig-shaped 
fruit, with red seeds of an intense bitterness. The stems 
are seldom less than eighteen inches, but more frequently 
three or four feet, in diameter, and from twenty to fifty feet 
or more before they part into branches. A small sapling, 
growing straight up toward the light through agroup of larger 
ones, yielded me planks more than thirty feet long, nine inches 
thick at one end and five at the other. Unfortunately, I had 
to cut it in November, when the sap was up, and, in con- 
sequence, it was so heavy that I could not relieve my men 
of the labour of carrying it by floating it down to my sawing- 
trestles. Another tree, equally large, but with white and 
brittle wood and drooping clusters of yellow seed-pods, was 
also plentiful ; and the crashing of one of these, as it fell, 
once brought the natives, who were unused to the silent 
operation of the cross-cut saw, to inform me that elephants 
must be in the forest breaking the trees close by me. 
Beside these, were the large kameel thorn (Acacia giraffa) ; 
the motjeerie, or omborom bongo — the traditionary mother 
tree of the Damaras — with wood like the lignum vitas we 
used to cut for the furnace of the “ Ma Robert ” on the lower 
Zambesi ; and the motjihaara, or oomahaama, a tree that 
differs from the stinkwood of the colony or the matundo of 
thp lower Zambesi, in having dry and flattened seed-pods 
of a brownish tint instead of drooping clusters of bright 
yellow flowers. On the banks of the rivulets grew the 
picturesque mosaawe — the pao-pisa of the Portuguese 
( Kigelia qnnnata) — a large, soft-wooded tree, nearly im- 
possible to work when cut with the sap in it. It is remark- 
able chiefly for the dark crimson flowers pendent on stems 
four feet or more long from its spreading branches. It has 
a fruit, hard, inedible, and fibrous as a great wooden 
cucumber. 
Higher on the hills grew the gigantic baobab, or mowana, 
called here m’boyou, or the house ; and farther down the 
river, the molambeira, with its white blossoms pendent among 
the rich green leaves, to be followed by the fruit, from whose 
refreshing (though white and dry) antiscorbutic pulp it ob- 
tains among the colonists the name of “ cream-of-tartar 
tree.” Many of the stems were stripped from knee to breast 
height, for the purpose of making cordage of the fibre, 
leaving, when the process is repeated by successive genera- 
tions, a series of rings, which may be noticed on the trunk 
shown in the illustration. 
In similar or even more precipitous localities is found the 
kookom-boyou, or Sterculia (f), a tree as tall, with a pithy 
stem, and wood nearly as unfit for any useful purpose, as 
that of the baobab. It has straight and upright smaller 
branches, which may be used as poles where lightness rather 
than strength is required ; while the inner bark, peeled off 
in strips, forms, while still fresh, good packing or binding 
thongs, but, when once dry, becomes too brittle to be used a 
second time. 
The maruru papierie, or soft white-wooded tree, bearing 
the poison grub of the Bushmen, grows also among the red 
volcanic rocks, with which the white stems and green 
chandelier-like leaves of the Euphorbias, filled with milky 
but intensely acrid sap, formed a striking contrast. 
The white or pale blue lotos, with its golden centre and 
broad green leaves, floats on the surface of the pools, from 
the depths of which the natives hook up its edible roots. 
Dwarf palms, with feathery or fan-shaped leaves, appear 
in favourable localities along the rivulets, and occasionally 
the tall stem of a palmyra is seen in the distance, but they 
are by no means so common as in the better- watered country 
above the Falls. I saw a few pallahs ; but as no precaution 
can prevent the all-pervading moisture from insinuating- 
itself between the cap and nipple, my gun missed fire. 
The spoor showed that koodoos and quag-gas had passed 
recently ; but, as my people remarked, though the game is 
not scarce, in that thick bush men cannot distinguish it 
with the eye. I took up the tracks of the quaggas, and 
followed them for many a weary round, till the men proposed 
to give it up and come again to-morrow. But as the camp 
was destitute of meat, to return without it to the hungry 
people was not to bo thought of. At length Matokolo fell 
flat backward in the bush — his keen eye had caught sight 
of the game ; but it was too late, and the quaggas dashed 
off to the opposite side of the valley. We left the spoor, 
and, climbing behind the hills, crept slowly and silently, not 
daring even to break a twig-, to the brow, where, far beneath 
me, I saw the head and shoulder of one. The short, sharp 
cry of alarm was uttered at the same instant,; the herd 
started as I pulled trigger, and dashed away down the valley 
to the westward. 
Blood-spots on the stones and leaves encouraged us to 
follow. We caught a glimpse of one alone, and, after a 
chase of four miles, Matokolo was seen returning- trium- 
phantly. He had outrun me ; and failing to kill the 
crippled quagga with his musket, had headed her, and 
knocked her down with a stone. My shot, aimed at the 
shoulder, had broken the hip-joint, as she started forward ; 
and Matokolo’ s had barely grazed the skin of her back. 
“ Haah aim (be quick), Mynheer, with your sketch-book,” 
said old Kajumba; “ and let us begin to eat.” 
The chase had brought us to Logier River, only three 
miles from the hill ; and word being sent there, the halt, 
the sick, and all the women who seemed at the point of 
death, came tripping along like fairies to the promised 
feast, leaving not a creature to guard the house. 
No sooner was permission given to cut, than Kajumba’s 
knife flew, as if by its own volition, to make the incision 
round the tail ; but I stopped him in time, and, returning 
to the hut, dined off as much of my goose as had not been 
feloniously abstracted from the pot, and attempted, but in 
vain, to dry and preserve the quagga skin, by stretching it 
above the fire in our cooking-hut. 
The animal was a mare of the full-striped quagga, which 
Chapman had first shot on May 20, 1862, upon the plains 
some distance to the south ; and which, when he mentioned 
to me that it had stripes upon its legs, I at once guessed 
must be a new variety. The common quagga of Kaffirland 
(E. quagga) has no stripes upon its rump or legs, while the 
bonte quagga (E. Burchelli) has the legs white from the 
houghs and knees. The zebra, as we call it in the colony, 
or E. montanus, has longer ears, and more asinine head, 
hoofs, and tail, and is found only on mountains and broken 
ground, whereas immense herds of the newly found variety 
live upon the plains, where there are no mountains within 
many days’ journey. 
Since then, we shot, and I sketched, while my friend 
photographed, as many specimens as we could ; but I only 
succeeded in saving one skin, which though it reached the 
Cape in good condition, was so destroyed by insects before 
it reached the British Museum, that Dr. Gray could not 
form a judgment on it, and was obliged to send it to be 
buried. 
The colour of the animal is generally white, more or 
less deeply tinted on the back, the rump, and shoulders, 
with Sienna brown, which is also prevalent about the muzzle, 
blending into the black of the lips. The brown of my 
present specimen was very faint, and in a young stallion 
previously shot by Chapman the ground was pure white. 
The stripes are of the deepest possible brown, or even of 
jet black, continued down to every hoof. They are some- 
times so strongly marked that the black spreads almost 
over the fetlock and pastern, and in others so faintly 
as to be hardly perceptible ; in all cases the inside of the 
forearm and thigh is more faintly marked. 
A black line runs from between the fore legs along 
the belly to between the hind legs, where it spreads, and 
becomes less dark ; and in the female, the teats, two in 
number, are placed in the after-part of it. There is also a 
black stripe upon the back, extending from the mane down 
the root of the tail to the brush, which is black and equine, 
though hardly so full as that of the horse. In fact, the 
inside hairs of the mane are black also ; but, on the out- 
side, the vertical stripes of black and white upon the neck 
and withers are continued up it. The mane comes well 
