HUNTING ON THE SIMBA RIVER 255 
gulf on the other, or a convolution corresponding with 
a break. The one consistent feature is constant dis¬ 
similarity. 
Beyond the rocky ranges to the north are splendid 
stretches of mixed woodland and pasturage ; but these, 
in March, are devoid of game. 
The heat at this period passed description, and the 
discomfort was accentuated by torrential rain-bursts 
daily, producing a plague of vicious-biting insects and 
mosquitoes in millions. We, having mosquito-curtains 
(mine were rigged here for the first time this year), 
partially escaped that terror ; but not a man of our 
safari could get a wink of sleep at nights, and general 
discontent prevailed. Yama, moreover, went down 
with fever; and we suffered also from an irritating red 
rash—said to be called “ prickly heat ”—though I 
attributed it to a plague of small grey caterpillars with 
arched backs that span webs like spiders and so lowered 
themselves in shoals from the trees above. We habitu¬ 
ally dined and lived al fresco beneath these trees, thus 
becoming an easy prey to these noxious beasts, that 
caused irritation wherever they crawled. Then we 
began to dream once more of the cool moorlands of 
Northumbria and its swirling salmon-streams! 
Such were our miseries, that at eight one evening—to 
avoid delay awaiting the thrice-a-week passenger-train— 
we fled in a “ C.G.,” that is, a covered goods-van, an 
iron box on wheels, and reached Yoi (altitude 1,830 ft), 
at 9.30 next morning, after a terrible night’s jolting and 
shunting on a freight-train. The discomforts of that 
night were, moreover, accentuated when, as the train 
started, our “boys” shoved into our truck the (very 
high) rhino head, which in the darkness had nearly been 
left behind on the platform. 
