268 
THE NEW AFRICA 
ing. This was in a beautiful opening on the river banks we 
named ‘May Elat’ from its charming appearance. The boys had 
to return and wade across this creek higher up through half a 
mile of water reeds and rushes, and landed much exhausted on 
the dry ground on the opposite side. 
A single letzwee grazing some distance off attracted my 
attention, and with a four hundred yards sight, as he would not 
let me get nearer, I was fortunate enough to bring him down. 
Great luck! here was a good feed for us all round. But our 
number, twenty-one in all, disposed of the lot in two hearty 
meals, and soon we were just as anxious as before to restock 
our larder. 
The weather set in much cooler, with an east wind that 
sprang up and happily dissipated the mosquitoes. We passed 
several creeks daily, and saw many flocks of green pigeons and 
parrots, whose bright plumage gaily flashed and sparkled in the 
sunlight as they flew screaming and cooing from one large tree 
to another. 
On the seventeenth of September, while passing as usual 
through much swamp and crossing many creeks, we came to a 
village on a knoll belonging to Moremi’s people, who possessed 
the first troop of cattle we encountered since leaving Indala’s. 
Owing to the nature of the country we were obliged again to take 
to the sand-belts to outflank a large creek running westward. A 
bad thorn forest had to be passed through here, composed prin¬ 
cipally of the Waacht een beetje thorn-trees, whose hooked 
thorns, arranged in opposite curves on the same branch, catch 
the unhappy passer-by in their toils whichever way he moves. 
The instinct, when caught by a thorn, is to halt and loosen one’s- 
self carefully and then try to avoid the repetition of the occur¬ 
rence. The Waacht een beetje, however, with diabolical accuracy, 
whenever it has ‘hooked’ a passer-by renders such attempts 
futile, for as soon as one has got free in one place, the thorns set 
in the opposite direction on the same branch invariably hook 
into some fresh part of the clothing, and at each move the 
neighbouring prehensile branches, set in motion by the move- 
