FAREWELL TO LECHE. 
283 
I am speaking of brats between two and three years 
old. It was a sore sight for me to see my little 
manikin borne away; I could not have been fonder 
of one of my own. His large black diamond eyes, 
with their long lashes, used to twinkle like stars; and 
his little teeth, white and even as snow-flakes, were 
exposed in a double row as he saw me coming to the 
wagon well loaded with meat behind the horse, and 
he used to clap his little hands with delight, and 
scream and dance again. He was a sad little ogre, 
and I am afraid it was more for love of the meat 
than of me, as, when I returned empty-handed, there 
were none of these demonstrations of joy. 
19th. — We are now once again fairly in this 
much-dreaded thirst land, where the villainous salt 
water has the same effect as Epsom salts. If we 
are fortunate, we hope, with the aid of spades, to 
obtain a sufficiency of this stuff to keep man and 
beast in life, every second day, until we come to the 
Bamangwatos, when I am going to take a different 
course to the Merico, by a river called Hotowani, 
■which runs into the Limpopo one day below the 
point where we join it. The grass is very scarce and 
dry, and all my oxen and horses are in very low 
condition, two or three of the former almost 
knocked up. 
I must not omit to mention the ant-heaps in this 
land, which are very extraordinary. They average, 
one with another, from ten to fifteen, or even, twenty 
feet in height. They are conical, very broad at the 
