Chap. XXII. 
FEUIT-TREES. 
431 
inserted^ to produce laceration and pain^ more than would be 
effected by the single wound. Frequently while sitting on the 
oxj as he happened to tread near a band, they would rush up 
liis legs to the rider, and soon let him. know that he had dis¬ 
turbed their march. They possess no fear, attacking with equal 
ferocity the largest as well as the smallest animals. When any 
person has leaped over the band, numbers of them leave the 
ranks and rush along the path, seemingly anxious for a fight. 
They are very useful in ridding the country of dead animal 
matter, and, when they visit a human habitation, clear it entirely 
of the destructive wliite ants and other vermin. They destroy 
many noxious insects and reptiles. The severity of their attack 
is greatly increased by their vast numbers, and rats, mice, lizards, 
and even the python natalensis, when iu a state of smTeit from 
recent feeding, fall victims to then fierce onslaught. These ants 
never make lulls like the white ant. Then nests are hut a short 
distance beneath the sod, which has the soft appearance of the 
abodes of ants in England. Occasionally they construct galleries 
over their path to the cells of the white ant, iu order to secure 
themselves from the heat of the sun during then marauding 
expeditions. 
January Ibth, 1855.^—We descended, in one hour, from the 
heights of Tala Mungongo. I counted the number of paces 
made on the slope downward, and found them to be sixteen 
hundred, wliich may give a perpendicular height of from twelve 
to fifteen hundred feet. Water boded at 206° at Tala Mungongo 
above, and at 208° at the bottom of the declivity, the air being 
as 72° in the shade in the former case, and 94° iu the latter. 
The temperature generally tlnoughout the day was from 94° to 
97° in the coolest shade we could find. 
The rivulets winch cut up the vaUey of Cassange were now 
dry; but the Lui and Luare contained abundance of rather 
brackish water. The banks are hned with palm, wdd date-trees, 
and many guavas, the fruit of which was now becoming ripe. A 
tree much Idie the mango abounds, but it does not yield fruit. In 
these rivers a Idnd of edible muscle is plentiful, the sheds of which 
exist iu aU the aduvial beds of the ancient rivers, as far as the 
Kuruman. The brackish nature of the water, probably enables it 
to exist here. On the open grassy lawns, great numbers of a 
