MOSQUITOES. 
11 
with the loss of my gun. The following morning 
Arbuthnot, Monies, Ellis, and myself went to try and 
recover it, and dived alternately, one firing shots 
from the shore, meanwhile, to scare the crocodiles. 
As the gun was a very valuable one, before relin¬ 
quishing the search, we made a capital drag, cut 
out of the bush like a huge rake, but all to no 
purpose, and I was obliged to put up with the 
loss. 
ISth .— The wagons separated, two going to the 
King’s trading, and the other with five white men 
going to St. Lucia Bay sea-cow shooting. Outspanned 
at the Inseline (a small river), nearly devoured by 
mosquitoes. 
I was here initiated in the art of trading with the 
natives, and bought an ox for four picks or hoes 
which the Kaffirs use for breaking up land to sow 
mealies, and which are worth in the colony Is. 6d. 
each. Beached the Black Umveloose, where we left 
the wagon in charge of a Kaffir chief, and sent the 
oxen some twenty miles back, the country farther 
ahead being very unhealthy for cattle, and indeed, 
for human beings too, only we did not know it at 
the time. Got out the boat, which was the inno¬ 
cent cause of many a miserable soaking night to 
myself and others. The mosquitoes were so dread¬ 
ful on the river banks, that we lighted cow-dung 
fires in every pot we had, and put them inside 
the now empty wagon, and all turned into it, and 
had the choice of two evils — to be worried by 
