The New Africa. A journey up the Chobe and down the Okovanga rivers. A record of exploration and sport ... With a newly drawn map of hitherto unexplored parts of the country, and seventy illustrations, etc

Chapter I

Preparation — Start from Dundee, Natal — Salted horses— Cross the Vaal river — Interview Acting-President Joubert — Rustenberg — Snakes on the Limpopo banks — Cattle stolen — King Khama in Shoshong — Engage Franz ........

Chapter II

; Franz's Matabele tale of wrongs — Leave Shoshong — Granite formation — The Makarikari lake — Sport at the lake — Baobab trees — Formation at Nata river — Game on the road — Klamachanyaana pools — Elephants empty Jurua pan ........

Chapter III

George Westbeech at Panda Matenga — How fathers of Jesuit mission instruct natives — Bad weather on road to Victoria falls — Nearly impale myself on assegai — Victoria falls — Trade with natives for food and tobacco — Compare Victoria falls with Niagara falls

Chapter IV

Return to Panda Matenga — Engage Jan Veyers — Prepare for journey up the Chobe with bearers — Jan Africa's fight with a lioness

Chapter V

Start for the Chobe — Mode of payment to the bearers — Rudolf left behind with fever — His sad end — The Situtunga buck — Jan Veyers' adventure with a lion — Shooting on the Chobe — Crocodile — Hammar's adventure with hippopotami .......

Chapter VI

The natives fear us — Capture of an old Mashubia — River overflowing its banks — Honey bird leads boys to python — Native dance — Shoot puku buck — Underground hive of peculiar bees — White buffalo — Blue wildebeest hunt — Hunter's delicacies — Swamps, tsetse fly — Scenery of Chobe — Game abundant —Narrow escape from fire — Blotchy appearance of natives accounted for by fire — Braying skins b VI PAGE 7:: 85 <M 109 127 137

Chapter VII

Arrive at Mameeles — Engage two Mosaros — Discontented bearers — Pig and quagga hunt — Adventure with baboons — Depth of Chobe — Dye clothes with Mopani juice— How skerm is built — Fight with the bearers — Hammar and the rooi buck — Strange behaviour of wounded waterbuck — The Sunta swamp — Paul's tale of the lions — Reach Linyanti district— Strange flight of bullet — How natives hunt game when river overflows .........

Chapter VIII

The Macheeayee — Rapid fall of temperature at night — Dispute with bearers — Lions disable game — Native pots — Harris buck or roan antelope — Dangerous forest fire — Cross the Sunta — Clever goats — Scared from hippo hunt in the moonlight by a lion — Buffalo and eland killed — Native language— Our course is altered by peculiar river — Jan Veyers threatens to desert ......

Chapter IX

Jan Veyers leads us into the sand-belts — Great thirst — Find water — How French died of thirst — Hyænas and lions — Grand buffalo hunt — Subsequent row with boys — Weird cry of owl — Jan Veyers remains behind — Deserted by the main body of bearers — Make friends with the natives living in the reeds ......

Chapter X

Moheni's men of great stature — Franz loses heart — Proceed up the Chobe — Natives bad shots in general — Native game-lore — The elephant and rhinoceros fight for peculiar privileges— Koodoo killed by lions — About lions —Lion hunt— First hills seen on the Chobe banks— Puff adder — — About snakes and their poison — Wild fruit — Grand forest .

Chapter XI

Moheni's deception— Falsity of native chiefs— The way native kings rule- Rhinoceros hunt— Too much meat— Best articles for trade— Hammar shoots six buck in a few minutes— A holiday— Shaky experience in a canoe — Chaffed by natives for our clumsiness

Chapter XII

Recover our stolen goats— Overburdened with goods— Suspicions— Shoot enormous koodoo— Matambanja's a long way off— I am fearfully scared by baboons while hunting hippo in the moonlight— Creeks running inland from the river— Kill sable antelope-Sable antelope and lions— Jeluka's old drift— Shoot rooi buck in burning forest— Long-range shooting— Bearers lazy from overfeeding -Typical rhinoceros hunt- More meat— Peculiar insects— The Loengwe river CONTENTS VII PAGE 150 162 181 196 211

Chapter XIII

Paul recognises me as a youthful companion in Natal — Paul, the big gun, and the rhinoceros — Chief Jeluka appears in state — Native attempt to rob us of our goods on the Loengwe — Suspicious outlook — Decide to try for the Okovanga — The Whippoorwill — I go to Matambanja alone — My guide to Matambanja — Game wild — Shoot wild dog believing it to be a lion — Nearly shoot a woman by accident — Matambanja's son visits me ........

Chapter XIV

Matambanja arrives with beer — Return to Liana river — Donkeys suffer and die from tsetse fly -bite — Mistake large lion for wildebeest — Lion hunt — Hammar makes a successful long shot — Matambanja arrives at our camp, and behaves badly — Our difficulties — How to travel these regions— Sakoonima arrives — He advises us to fly — Chief Kikonto tries to murder Franz — We fire to protect him — We burn our superfluous goods, and make for the sand-belts heavily laden — We find a Mosaro woman who directs us to water — The Mosaros are afraid of us — About the Mosaros .......

Chapter XV

More about the Mosaros — Bushman paintings — Sleep in the forest without fires — Keep the natives off by shooting — Excitement of our party at a wild stampede of phenomenal quantities of game in an open valley — Camp in Mabula forest— Half expect native attack — Startled by strange appearance of round light in the forest — The mabula tree and fruit — Welcome sound of the grey khoran's cry — Game — Paul digs for water .........

Chapter XVI

Sakoonima gets nasty — Watershed between Chobe and Okovanga — Arrive at small village of Okovanga people — Game very scarce — Hunt after wildebeest — Men from Kikonto's overtake us with message — Boy nearly kills himself with 'dacha' smoke — The effects of 'dacha' smoke — Makoyo Debabe's nephew- — Quagga hunt — Buffalo game — Native smithy . .......

Chapter XVII

Thirst — Natives go down ant-bear hole for moist mud — Expedition eating their sandals from hunger — Franz scares away troop of wildebeest, fruitless chase after them, also after giraffe — Kill hartebeest — Lion injures boy in the night — Okovanga at last — Island in river — Meet Portuguese trader, Gonsalvus by name — King Debabe or Indala turns rusty — I interview King on island — He tries to poison me with beer — Franz demoralised ....... PAGE 226 237 250 263

Chapter XVIII

Indala takes our goods— No food — Palaver with our boys — Discover a horse on the island — Indala's treachery and murder of Van Zyl — Our brave boys — Women bring us food at night— Obstacles to our crossing the river — Consider what to do — Hammar tries to shoot Indala — Native juggling — The bar of lead tradition — Franz lied somewhere

Chapter XIX

The Boers on the trek to Damaraland settle accounts with a native chief who molested one of the party — Our party to a man refuse to accompany me across the Okovanga wheu the canoe arrives — Paul volunteers — Strange people visible on the opposite shore — Mombokooshus ferry us over — The expedition follows with glee — Canoe men display dexterity in sport — People from Lake Ngami — Advise us to go to the lake — Intuhe has dispute with Debabe, Indala's nephew — Indala the wizard levies tribute from the lake people — We are under suspicion of being spies, and are obliged to go to the lake — Breaking-in pack-oxen — I give farewell advice to Indala — About the Mombokooshus

Chapter XX

We march down the Okovanga — Grand country — Opportunities for settlers — Hammar gets parted from the expedition by accident — Natives fishing in the Okovanga swamps — Atmospheric temperature rising — In Moremi's territory — Mosquitoes .....

Chapter XXI

Cross the Ngamasero or Qaudum river — Hear of white man taken prisoner by Moremi's people — Makubas confirm overflow of water from Cubango to Chobe — No game — Short of food — Shoot crocodile — Vast swamps of the Cubango — Bush buck dangerous — Take quinine prophylactically— Cool east wind — The Waacht een beetje thorn (Wait a bit thorn) — Meet native elephant hunter — Almost step on leopard — We walk into hunter's camp and are made prisoners— Elephant's biltong — Morning devotions

Chapter XXII

Lose our last goats in the enormous swamps on the route — Native with ostrich feathers— Scene of '.battle between Matabele and Moremi's people— Invasion of the Matabele— Da Tapo the Brave repulses Matabele — Matabele attack the Batowaana — Their strongholds— The island in the reeds— Chief Tschukoorroo beats slave for theft— Long walk across a sand-belt— Large herds of cattle and much milkX Malarial germs supposed to be in milk— Our surprise at finding well-dressed natives— Reach the lake— Palaver with suspicious chiefs —Natives wish to murder us in cold blood during the night, but CONTENTS IX PAGE 275 298 311 326 348 357 372 are prevented by Mashabie — Stremboom and Umkook — March into King's kraal amid fearful excitement of native women, and are tried — Saved by a child — Paul's danger — Hammar's foot,

Chapter XXIII

Paul maltreated — Rest — King Moremi the inquisitive— How the King and his tribe were baptized, and the result — Native religion — I intrigue against Indala — About the Batowaana or Baros,

Chapter XXIV

Medical practice at the lake — Mashabie's wife — Pay off our boys — Words to me — Their farewell to us — Hammar nearly overrun by lions — Adventure with lions at dawn — The kill — Intuhe's song — Stremboom and I go hunting — Disturb a lion in the dark — Hammar hunts the lion, .........

Chapter XXV

Abortive elephant hunt — Giraffe hunt — Thorns — About the aasvogel (vulture) — Stremboom shoots a leopard — How the Namakwas treated Stremboom — How Witboy saved Stremboom at a lion hunt — Piet Jacobs wounded by a native on the Chobe — Moremi's terror of chloroform — Moremi wants me to remain with him — Van Zyl the elder's great elephant hunt, and the end of his career, ....

Chapter XXVI

Medicinal qualities of native roots — Arrival of Stremboom's wagons — Visit by King's wives — Return visit to dinner — Instrument of torture — A Mongwato burns a boy to death — Kingly retribution — Slavery — Stremboom's trade, .......

Chapter XXVII

Good-bye to the lake — The Zouga river — Makehto — The runner — We are very hungry — I eat ants — The letter trees — Chief Gumpo nearly killed by a lioness — A game of cards mystifies the natives — Mosquitoes — Spurious lion hunt in the moonlight — River widens into swamps — Columns of mosquitoes — Bad water — Leave the Zouga — Biting flies — The swearing khoran .......

Chapter XXVIII

Meet Mosarwas, who show us water — Thlakane water-pits, bad water — Mongwato cattle stand thirst well — Reach Haakedoorn Vley — Good water — Paul and the goat are great friends — Trek Boers of 1S79 suffer thirst at Malatzwye — About the trek Boers — The Lichachane water-hole — About the water-pans — We cross the Pooh-Pooh sand-belt under trying circumstances — A strong MoDgwato — Hear that Rudolf shot a big elephant ........ X PAGE 386 401

Chapter XXIX

Reach Thlaballa water, and put the thirst behind us — Franz regains his spirits and is impudent — I have the first shave for nine months — Hard ground again — Hearty welcome of the Shoshong traders — Khama sends for me to hear of our voyage — We leave Shoshong with Piet Grobelar — Grobelar's difference with Khama — We cross the Limpopo river — Crocodiles kill sheep — We visit Khamani, Khama's brother — Potgieter's farm in the Waterberg and the hot sulphur springs — The high veldt again — Game preserve at Grobelar's farm

Appendix

History of the Barotzi Valley ERRATUM For Okavango read Okovanga. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS aueel schulz, m.d. ...... Frontispiece PAGE AUGUST HAMMAR, C.E., ... . .2 THE MACHALISBERG ... ... 7 GRANITE KOPPJE ...... .19 BAOBAB TREE, ........ 25 CAMP NEAR KLAMACHANYAANA ...... 27 SPECIMENS OF BAOBAB TREE, VICTORIA FALLS, . . . . 35, 36 ZAMBESI ABOVE VICTORIA FALLS, ..... 37 VICTORIA FALLS, SOUTH BANK, ...... 39 FIRST VIEW OF CHOBE, ....... 53 NATIVE POT, ........ 78 MOPANI FOREST, ........ 95 MOHENI, . . . . ... . . 109 NATIVE WEAPONS, CHOBE, . . . . . .110 BEER-POT, CHOBE, . . . . . . . .111 MOHENl's MAN, . . . . . . . .111 ORNAMENTED CALABASHES AND POTS, WITH FIGURES SCRATCHED ON THE SURFACE, ....... 112 NATIVE KNIVES IN SHEATH OF WOOD, CHOBE, . . . .114 LETZWEE BUCK-HEAD, ....... 122 NATIVE AXES, ........ 133 OUR GUIDE TO MATAMBANJA'S, ...... 156 MATAMBANJA, . . . . . . . .163 SAKOONIMA, ........ 171 SAKOONIMA'S HEAD MAN, . . . . . . .172 A MOSARO, ........ 176 BUSHMAN WOMAN, . . . . . . .183 BUSHMAN PAINTINGS, ...... 184-186 SWEET WATER PAN .......

THE NEW AFRICA PAGE ONE OF KIKONTO'S MEN, ....... 200 MAKOYO, ......... 201 PILLOW AND METAL PIPE-BOWL, ...... 202 DRINKING-VESSEL AND PATTERN ON EDGE OF SAME, . . ■ 206 MOMBOKOOSHU SPEARS ....... 207 MOMBOKOOSHU AXES ....... 208 FIRST VIEW OF THE OKOVANGA, ....-• 220 INDALA, . . . . . . • • 223 KING MOREMI, ........ 292 STREMBOOM'S FACTORY AT LAKE NGAMI, ..... 296 MARMOSET AT LAKE NGAMI, ...... 356 VIEW OF KALAHARI DESERT NEAR MALATZWYE, .... 375 COLOURED PLATES BUSHMAN PAINTINGS .... at pp. 184, 186, 188, 190 MAP at p. 1 MAP OF HITHERTO UNEXPLORED PARTS OF THE COUNTRY

Chapter I

Preparation — Start from Dundee, Natal — Salted horses — Cross the Vaal river — Interview Acting- President Joubert — Rustenberg — Snakes on the Limpopo banks — Cattle stolen — King Khama in Shoshong — Engage Franz. In March 1884 Mr. August Hammar, C.E., and myself under took a journey into the interior of South Africa Avith the object of completing the survey of the Chobe river to its sources, and generally of investigating this unknown portion of Central South Africa.1 Of the reasons prompting us to undertake this journey it is unnecessary to speak ; therefore let it suffice the reader to know that I defrayed the expenses of the whole trip out of my own pocket, excepting the personal requirements of my companion Mr. Hammar. Usually parties proceeding to the interior equip themselves with the heavy ox-wagon, drawn by sixteen or more oxen, as a means of conveyance — a lumbering, four-wheeled concern, which, although enabling one to carry supplies and necessaries for a long period into the wilds, has the drawback, that for passage through untravelled bush country, such as we proposed to traverse, it is necessary often 1 That I should bring to the notice of the reader events that transpired twelve years ago, and for that reason might be considered stale, may be justified by the explanation that since we were the first Whites to traverse this partly unknown country, no explorer has followed in our footsteps, and the regions of the central Chobe and the country we traversed from there to the Okavango still partly remain undescribed territory.

Lying south of the Zambesi, and hitherto neglected as offering no material attractions, coupled with the fact of its being overrun by uncouth tribes, the country has been difficult of access to the ordinary sportsman. The increased attention devoted to South Africa of late induces me to put forward such information as we gathered, in the hope that some of the data may be of service to those who now are devoting themselves to the opening up of South Africa. A to hew a path through the trees where otherwise a two-wheeled conveyance can pass without much trouble, thus saving endless time and annoyance. Of course, with a two-wheeled cart one cannot convey the same amount of stuff as on a wagon ; but as we intended to make a flying journey, and from the start had made up our minds to rough it, we decided to trust our fortunes and impedimenta to this modest, though serviceable, conveyance, drawn by twelve picked oxen from Hammar's farm.

Our armoury con sisted of eleven guns, principally Swinburne- Henry rifles taking the Martini - Henry cartridge — a weapon much used in South Africa, owing to the facilities offered for obtaining cartridges, and its sterling qualities as a long-range killer. For big game we took one 4-bore elephant gun, MR. AUGUST HAMMAR, C.E. necessitating fourteen drams of powder to drive its quarter-pound bullet, and one single -577 express, which, as the extractor got out of order, was subsequently left at the Zambesi, besides several other rifles. Shot guns we had of three or four different patterns. A naval chronometer, the only one available in Natal at the time, with sextant, artificial horizon, azimuth compass, etc., supplied the surveying necessaries, and with a few handbooks, including a naval almanac, we felt prepared to make at least a superficial report of all that might be encountered on the trip.

To save space, we only took the most necessary articles of clothing with us. We chose six good woollen shirts apiece, four pair of best moleskin trousers, and nine pair of ammunition boots HORSES 3 and woollen socks, which are the best footgear for work of this kind ; also a couple of coats apiece. Hammar preferred to wear a helmet, while I wore a veldt hat, supplemented by a Panama straw hat, over which the veldt hat was drawn and fixed, with good ventilation holes punched through the sides, to allow the air to circulate freely over the head. Three of the best salted horses we could get were taken along, and very useful these good beasts proved for hunting game, or going after the cattle, which often got lost among the bush-grown plots on the way up to the Zambesi. Salted horses, I should explain, are those that have passed through a disease known throughout South Africa as 'horse-sickness,' and consequently are supposed to be impervious to similar attacks in the future.

It is proved, however, that horses, though they may have survived the ' horse-sickness,' are only ' salted ' so far as the district in which they contracted the disease is concerned. They often die of 'horse-sickness' in other districts, although not so readily as 'unsalted horses.' The disease is very virulent, generally carrying off eighty per cent, of the attacked animals ; therefore salted horses are in much demand by hunters and travellers in the lower lying, and therefore more unhealthy, parts of South Africa. The symptoms of ' horse-sickness ' are high temperature, great lassitude, dulness of the eye, violent coughing, and finally frothing at the nose, with heavy dyspnœa. When these last symptoms appear the case is hopeless. The post-mortem appearances are frothy injection of the highly vascularised lungs, with strong serous injection of the pleura, and a black, blotchy patchiness, like splashes of ink, over the otherwise normal intestines.

After the first symptoms appear, the disease runs its course in about three days, although there are some observers who declare that one can detect the disease earlier by means of the thermometer. However, as the horse generally appears to be perfectly healthy to within three days of its death, it is hardly probable that horse owners will bother themselves by taking temperatures or even have any suspicion of possible illness before serious symptoms appear. The disease is probably zymotic, hardly infectious, appearing only in summer, on the High Flats, and is most prevalent amongst horses that are allowed to graze in the open during the night, especially if there is any dew on the grass. In fact, on a dewy, misty, hot morning it is recognised as almost a certainty that horses will contract this disease if allowed to graze outside in low lying country ; while even in valleys existing on the high lands, horses are by no means safe under these conditions.

Great significance is attached by farmers to the first day of frost at the break of the seasons, for the first frost seems to aggra vate any latent germs of disease in a most violent manner, and many horses die about this period. After the third day of frost the disease is practically extinct until the following summer. It is very remarkable that this illness only attacks horses and no other animals, although these are exposed to its influence in every way. Lately it has been asserted that the microbe of this disease has been discovered by the Cape official veterinary surgeon, and that a horse properly inoculated with an attenuated preparation of microbes will not catch the sickness. As this prophylactic treatment is still in the experimental stage, it is unnecessary to go any further into the subject.

The discovery, if verified, will be hailed with delighted satis faction by the farmers throughout South Africa, who annually lose thousands of horses from this terrible disease. All being prepared — the tents, food, medicine, etc. — and the usual paraphernalia of travel safely stowed away in the cart, we made a trial trip of our first ' trek ' over some large stones to convince ourselves that the cart would stand the rough shocks sure to be experienced on the journey before us, and also to shake everything into position, or to expose, if possible, any flaws in our arrangements while we were still within reach of opportunities to repair them. As all was found to be in order, we made a definite start from Dundee in Natal on the 2nd of March. THE VAAL RIVER 5 Our party consisted of Mr. Hammar, the white boy Rudolf, who was to act as cook, three natives to look after the cattle and do the driving and leading and general work about camp, and myself.

We crossed the Drakensberg by the famous ' Amajuba ' (native for ' pigeon ') mountain over Laing's Nek, and trekked across the long, rolling, grass-grown flats to the Vaal river at Standerton, without anything unusual occurring beyond losing our cattle once for a night, when they had strayed on the back track in the dark, owing to the negligence of the herd. The Vaal river was much swollen by the rains, stopping our progress for several days, as there was no bridge to cross by, and the drift was impassable. Hammar and I found a boat, belonging to a blacksmith on the opposite side, lying idle, as there was no one who could manage it. Before long we had obtained permission to use the boat to row about on the river with, on condition that any one wishing to cross should be ferried over by us at a shilling per head for the benefit of the owner.

The wily blacksmith rather overreached us by this bargain; for we found that the newly established ferry was much in request by travellers, who constantly required our services, and were often not in the best of humour at any little delay, making us aware, too, of their displeasure in no measured terms, while we, for the fun of the thing, conscientiously fulfilled our self-imposed duties, to the profit of the blacksmith, who netted over forty shillings a day from our work. It is an interesting fact that the Vaal river, and all other rivers running west out of the Transvaal, are not inhabited by either crocodiles or eels, although fish of several species are found in great numbers. Hearing of a 'punt,' that had just arrived, large enough to convey the cart over the river, some miles below where we were camped, we made our way there and crossed.

The oxen were obliged to swim over, amidst considerable anxiety on our part, for the rapidly flowing current washed them below the landing-place against the steep banks on the opposite side ; and it was with great difficulty that we finally managed to get the lot safely ashore by swimming amongst them and twisting their tails to increase their efforts at self-preserva tion. Apparently dazed by the novelty of the situation, one brute got stranded on a bank in the river, and resented with his horns any attempt to dislodge him from the apparent place of safety, until Hammar, who fetched a stout stick, forced him to make another effort to join his companions on the bank, this time with a successful result; for as the beast took the water, Hammar seized his tail with both hands, and with a good wrenching twist sent him bellowing forward to the mainland.

We yoked up (inspanned) the oxen, and trekked on over the grass-grown rolling plains as before, reaching Pretoria in ten days. We passed over the east of what are now known as the Rand goldfields and Johannesburg, of course without the faintest suspicion of the enormous mineral wealth lying under our feet. In Pretoria I interviewed the then Acting- President, Mr. Piet Joubert, with a view to passing through the country free of the usual duties imposed on all goods imported into this land of the free. In vain I argued that we were in transit, and would only use the roads for at most three weeks ; but with a humorous twinkle in his fine black eyes, ' Oom Piet ' assured me that as all good Boers paid duty, therefore so must I ; so with the best grace at my command, I increased the Government revenue at the rate of £1 per barrel for all our guns, and four per cent, ad valorem on the rest of our goods, the valuation being kindly taken from my own statement.

Mr. Joubert was very much interested in the objects of our expedition, and gave me a kindly hint with regard to our behaviour towards the natives, advocating forbear ance and calmness on all difficult occasions — a sound piece of advice, which proved very valuable to us in the various vicissi tudes of our journey. Changing our natives, who were afraid to go any further, we THE LIMPOPO RIVER 7 trekked on towards Rustenberg, along the western slope of the beautiful Machalisberg, famed for the good quality of its tobacco, and the decisive victory which was gained by the Boers over Umziligazi, the Matabele king, at Oliphant's Nek in 1837-38, compelling the latter to fly northward with his tribe to occupy what is now known as Matabeleland. We here crossed the Limpopo, known as the Crocodile river near its source, which, although only the size of a large brook in England, is infested with the creatures from which it derives its name.

A Boer told me that not so long ago, a man, while cross- THE MACHALISBERG ing the river, was pulled from his horse by a crocodile, and was killed under the eyes of his horror-stricken companions before they could drive the beast off. Rustenberg we found to be a picturesque little village, in whose neighbourhood we were much surprised to find that pineapples and other almost tropical fruit grow to perfection, as we thought to have bidden farewell to such luxuries on the coast. Actuated by some strange fear of passing into other countries, our natives deserted us soon after leaving Rustenberg, so that Rudolf and I were obliged to play the part of drivers and leaders ourselves, while Hammar for the time being was constituted cook and stable-boy. We found, when left to our own resources, that we got on very well, although the duties attendant upon herding wilful oxen and driving lazy ones were very irk some ; still, anything was preferable to sticking fast for want of help.

Thus we travelled on at the rate of about twenty miles a day to Shoshong Bamangwato, the capital of King Khama's country. Small game, hitherto scarce, commenced to be plentiful in the wooded neighbourhood of the Limpopo, along whose left bank we travelled for several days. A notable feature in this district is the enormous quantities of pheasants found in the bushes, their hoarse, croaking cry filling the air in the morning and at sunset. In size equal to the European pheasant, variegated grey in colour, their chief distinction is a bare red membranous covering of the throat, and an absence of long tail feathers. I suspect that they belong to the tribe of francolines, and are not pheasants at all, although bearing the name. Hammar, while searching for a convenient spot to water the cattle on the Limpopo banks, came upon an enormous crocodile, over fifteen feet long, lying in the sun.

It ran towards the river with a peculiar swing ing motion of its head from side to side, which, as it has never been described before, deserves mention. Here we heard the first wolf utter its long-drawn, hungry howl one night while camped on the banks of the Notuani, an affluent of the Limpopo, and here also we found the country infested with venomous serpents to a degree necessitating the greatest caution in walking in the grass and bushes away from the road. Lured one morning by the inviting cackle of a koorhan, a game bird of the bustard kind, living in the bush, I took my gun to hunt him up, and had hardly gone fifty yards when a hare jumped up, which I hit hard with a charge of No. 3 shot. He crawled into a hole a few yards off. While running after him, I was brought to a sudden halt by coming upon a grey cobra, quite seven feet long and three inches thick, who quietly sailed out of my path with outspread neck.

I let ,_.i__ go, though much astonished at his size, not wishing to waste a charge over him, and went on more carefully, when a few yards SNAKES 9 further on another cobra magnificently reared his head some three feet from the ground, and calmly looked me in the face. Watching him closely, I sidled off, when he disappeared in the brushwood and grass. Going now with the greatest care, I discovered the hare seated in an ant-bear hole, not dead as I expected, but with ears erect, and evidently in fear of something more than myself. Catching him by the ears, and drawing him out, I was surprised to see the head and body of a python come out of the hole as if to see where the hare had got to. This was too much for my nerves — three snakes in less than a minute, — so I concluded to beat a masterly retreat with all the caution warranted by the circumstances, and reached the cart without mishap.