Chap. VIII. 
GEAPES. 
169 
The Bechiianas will keep on the sick-list as long as they feel 
any weakness; so I at last began to be anxious that they should 
make a little exertion to get forward on our way. One of them, 
however, happening to move a hundred yards from the waggon, 
fell down; and, being unobserved, remained the whole night in 
the pouring rain totally insensible; another was subjected to fre¬ 
quent swooning: but making beds in the waggons for these our 
worst cases, with the help of the Bakwain and the Bushmen, we 
moved slowly on. We had to nurse the sick like cluldren ; and, 
like children recovering from dlness, the better they became the 
more impudent they grew. Tliis was seen in the peremptory 
orders they would give mth their now piping voices. Nothing 
that we did pleased them; and the laughter mth wliich I received 
their ebuUitions, though it was only the real expression of gladness 
at their recovery, and amusement at the ridiculous part they acted, 
only increased their chagrin. The want of power in the man who 
guided the two front oxen, or, as he was called, the leader,” 
caused us to be entangled with trees, both standing and fallen, 
and the labour of cutting them down was even more severe than 
ordinary; but notwithstanding an immense amount of toil, my 
health continued good. 
We wished to avoid the tsetse of our former path, so kept a 
course on the magnetic meridian from Lurilopepe. The necessity 
of making a new path much increased om* toil. We were, however, 
rewarded in lat. 18^ with a sight we had not enjoyed the year 
before, namely, large patches of gTape-bearing vines. There they 
stood before my eyes ; but the sight was so entkely unexpected 
that I stood some time gazing at the clusters of grapes mth which 
they were loaded, with no more thought of plucking than if I had 
been beholding them in a dream. The Bushmen know and eat 
them; but they are not well flavoured on account of the great 
astringency of the seeds, which are in shape and size like split 
peas. The elephants are fond of the fruit, plant, and root alike. 
I here found an insect wliich preys on ants; it is about an inch 
cind a quarter long, as thick as a crow-quill, and covered with black 
hair. It puts its head into a httle hole in the ground, and quivers 
its tail rapidly; the ants come near to see it, and it snaps up eadi 
as he comes within the range of the forceps on its tail. As its 
head is beneath the ground, it becomes a question how it can 
