so great a variety of
thorn-bearing plants and trees. We have thorns of every size and shape;
thorns straight, thin and long, short and thick, or hooked, and so
strong as to be able to cut even leather like a knife. Seed-vessels are
scattered every where by these appendages. One lies flat as a shilling
with two thorns in its centre, ready to run into the foot of any animal
that treads upon it, and stick there for days together. Another (the
'Uncaria procumbens', or Grapple-plant) has so many hooked thorns as to
cling most tenaciously to any animal to which it may become attached;
when it happens to lay hold of the mouth of an ox, the animal stands and
roars with pain and a sense of helplessness.

Whenever a part of the forest has been cleared for a garden, and
afterward abandoned, a species of plant, with leaves like those of
ginger, springs up, and contends for the possession of the soil with a
great crop of ferns. This is the case all the way down to Angola, and
shows the great difference of climate between this and the Bechuana
country, where a fern, except one or two hardy species, is never seen.
The plants above mentioned bear a pretty pink flower close to the
ground, which is succeeded by a scarlet fruit full of seeds, yielding,
as so many fruits in this country do, a pleasant acid juice, which,
like the rest, is probably intended as a corrective to the fluids of the
system in the hot climate.

On leaving the Chihune we crossed the Longe, and, as the day was cloudy,
our guides wandered in a forest away to the west till we came to the
River Chihombo, flowing to the E.N.E. My men depended so much on the
sun for guidance that, having seen nothing of the luminary all day, they
thought we had wandered back to the Chiboque, and, as often happens when
bewildered, they disputed as to the point where the sun should rise next
morning. As soon as the rains would allow next day, we went off to the
N.E. It would have been better to have traveled by compass alone, for
the guides took advantage of any fears expressed by my people, and
threatened to return if presents were not made at once. But my men had
never left their own country before except for rapine and murder.
When they formerly came to a village they were in the habit of killing
numbers of the inhabitants, and then taking a few young men to serve as
guides to the next place. As this was their first attempt at an opposite
line of conduct, and as they were without thei