itted by them when they were chin-deep in water. Their
music was always regarded in other spots as the most pleasant sound that
met the ear after crossing portions of the thirsty desert; and I could
fully appreciate the sympathy for these animals shown by Aesop, himself
an African, in his fable of the "Boys and the Frogs".

It is remarkable that attempts have not been made to any extent to
domesticate some of the noble and useful creatures of Africa in England.
The eland, which is the most magnificent of all antelopes, would
grace the parks of our nobility more than deer. This animal, from the
excellence of its flesh, would be appropriate to our own country; and as
there is also a splendid esculent frog nearly as large as a chicken, it
would no doubt tend to perpetuate the present alliance if we made a gift
of that to France.

The scavenger beetle is one of the most useful of all insects, as it
effectually answers the object indicated by the name. Where they abound,
as at Kuruman, the villages are sweet and clean, for no sooner are
animal excretions dropped than, attracted by the scent, the scavengers
are heard coming booming up the wind. They roll away the droppings of
cattle at once, in round pieces often as large as billiard-balls; and
when they reach a place proper by its softness for the deposit of their
eggs and the safety of their young, they dig the soil out from beneath
the ball till they have quite let it down and covered it: they then lay
their eggs within the mass. While the larvae are growing, they devour
the inside of the ball before coming above ground to begin the world for
themselves. The beetles with their gigantic balls look like Atlas with
the world on his back; only they go backward, and, with their heads
down, push with the hind legs, as if a boy should roll a snow-ball with
his legs while standing on his head. As we recommend the eland to John
Bull, and the gigantic frog to France, we can confidently recommend this
beetle to the dirty Italian towns and our own Sanitary Commissioners.

In trying to benefit the tribes living under the Boers of the Cashan
Mountains, I twice performed a journey of about three hundred miles to
the eastward of Kolobeng. Sechele had become so obnoxious to the Boers
that, though anxious to accompany me in my journey, he dared not
trust himself among them. This did not arise from the crime of
cattle-stealing; for that crime, so common among the Caffres, was never
charged