Chap. XYI. 
HUNGEE—PALISADES. 
283 
poured down every day, and kept those who had clothing con¬ 
stantly wet. I observed, in tliis piece of forest, a very strong 
smell of sulphuretted hydrogen. This I had observed repeatedly 
in other parts before. I had attacks of fever of the intermittent 
type again and again, in consequence of repeated drenchings in 
these unhealtliy spots. 
On the 11th and 12th we were detained by incessant rains, 
and so heavy I never saw the like in the south. I had a little 
tapioca and a small quantity of Libonta meal, which I still 
reserved for worse times. The patience of my men under hunger 
was admirable ; the actual want of the present is never so painful 
as the thought of getting nothing in the future. We thought 
the people of some large hamlets near us very niggardly and 
very independent of their chiefs, for they gave us and Manenko 
nothing, though they had large fields of maize in an eatable 
state around them. Wlien she went and kindly begged some 
for me, they gave her five ears only. They were subjects of her 
uncle; and, had they been Makololo, would have been lavish in 
then gifts to the niece of their chief. I suspected that they 
were dependants of some of Sliinte’s principal men, and had no 
power to part with the maize of then masters. 
Each house of these hamlets has a palisade of thick stakes 
around it, and the door is made to resemble the rest of the 
stockade; the door is never seen open; when the owner wishes 
to enter, he removes a stake or two, squeezes his body in, then 
plants them again in their places, so that an enemy coming in 
the night would find it difficult to discover the entrance. These 
palisades seem to indicate a sense of insecurity in regard to their 
fellow-men, for there are no wild beasts to disturb them; the 
bows and arrows have been nearly as efficacious in clearing the 
country here, as guns have in the country further south. This 
was a disappointment to us, for we expected a continuance of 
the abundance of game in the north, which we found when we 
first came up to the confluence of the Leeba and Leeambye. 
A species of the silver-tree of the Cape {Leueodendron argen- 
teum) is found in abundance in the parts tlu'ough which we have 
travelled since leaving Samoana’s. As it grows at a height of 
between two and three thousand feet above the level of the 
sea, on the Cape Table Mountain, and again on the northern 
