PRODUCTIONS OF THE SOIL.

573

November 26th. As the oxen could only move at night, in consequence of a fear that the buffaloes in this quarter might have introduced the tsetse, I usually performed the march by day on foot, while some of the men brought on the oxen by night. On coming to the villages under Marimba, an old man, we crossed the Unguesi, a rivulet which, like the Lekone, runs backward. It falls into the Leeambye a little above the commencement of the rapids. The stratified gneiss, which is the underlying rock of much of this part of the country, dips toward the centre of the continent, but the strata are often so much elevated as to appear nearly on their edges. Rocks of augitic trap are found in various positions on it; the general strike is north and south; but when the gneiss was first seen, near to the basalt of the falls, it was easterly and westerly, and the dip toward the north, as if the eruptive force of the basalt had placed it in that position.

We passed the remains of a very large town, which, from the only evidence of antiquity afforded by ruins in this country, must have been inhabited for a long period; the millstones of gneiss, trap, and quartz were worn down two and a half inches perpendicularly. The ivory grave-stones soon rot away. Those of Moyara's father, who must have died not more than a dozen years ago, were crumbling into powder; and we found this to be generally the case all over the Batoka country. The region around is pretty well covered with forest; but there is abundance of open pasturage, and, as we are ascending in altitude, we find the grass to be short, and altogether unlike the tangled herbage of the Barotse valley.

It is remarkable that we now meet with the same trees we saw in descending toward the west coast. A kind of sterculia, which is the most common tree at Loanda, and the baobab, flourish here; and the tree called moshuka, which we found near Tala Mungongo, was now yielding its fruit, which resembles small apples. The people brought it to us in large quantities: it tastes like a pear, but has a harsh rind, and four large seeds within. We found prodigious quantities of this fruit as we went along. The tree attains the height of 15 or 20 feet, and has leaves, hard and glossy, as large as one's hand. The tree itself is never found on the lowlands, but is mentioned with approbation at the end of the work of Bowditch. My men almost lived upon the fruit for many days.

The rains had fallen only partially: in many parts the soil was

574

ABUNDANCE OF FRUIT.

quite dry and the leaves drooped mournfully, but the fruit-trees are unaffected by a drought, except when it happens at the time of their blossoming. The Batoka of my party declared that no one ever dies of hunger here. We obtained baskets of manéko, a curious fruit, with a horny rind, split into five pieces: these sections, when chewed, are full of a fine glutinous matter, and sweet like sugar. The seeds are covered with a yellow silky down, and are not eaten the entire fruit is about the size of a walnut. We got also abundance of the motsouri and mamosho. We saw the Batoko eating the beans called nju, which are contained in a large square pod; also the pulp between the seeds of nux vomica, and the motsintséla. Other fruits become ripe at other seasons, as the motsikiri, which yields an oil, and is a magnificent tree, bearing masses of dark evergreen leaves; so that, from the general plenty, one can readily believe the statement made by the Batoka. We here saw trees allowed to stand in gardens, and some of the Batoka even plant them, a practice seen nowhere else among natives. A species of leucodendron abounds. When we meet with it on a spot on which no rain has yet fallen, we see that the young ones twist their leaves round during the heat of the day, so that the edge only is exposed to the rays of the sun; they have then a half twist on the petiole. The acacias in the same circumstances, and also the mopane (Bauhania), fold their leaves together, and, by presenting the smallest possible surface to the sun, simulate the eucalypti of Australia.

LOW HILLS.

575

CHAPTER XXVII.

Low Hills.-Black Soldier-Ants; their Cannibalism.-The Plasterer and its Chloroform.-White Ants; their Usefulness.-Mutokwane-smoking; its Effects.Border Territory. - Healthy Table-lands.-Geological Formation.-Cicada.Trees.-Flowers.-River Kalomo.-Physical Conformation of Country.-Ridges, sanatoria. A wounded Buffalo assisted. - Buffalo-bird. -Rhinoceros-bird.Leaders of Herds.-The Honey-guide.-The White Mountain.-Mozuma River. -Sebituane's old Home.-Hostile Village.-Prophetic Phrensy.-Food of the Elephant.—Ant-hills.-Friendly Batoka.-Clothing despised.—Method of Salutation.-Wild Fruits. — The Captive released. — Longings for Peace. - Pingola's Conquests.-The Village of Monze.-Aspect of the Country.-Visit from the Chief Monze and his Wife.-Central healthy Locations.-Friendly Feelings of the People in reference to a white Resident.-Fertility of the Soil.-Bashukulompo Mode of dressing their Hair.—Gratitude of the Prisoner we released.— Kindness and Remarks of Monze's Sister.-Dip of the Rocks.-Vegetation.Generosity of the Inhabitants.-Their Anxiety for Medicine.-Hooping-cough. -Birds and Rain.

November 27th. STILL at Marimba's. In the adjacent country palms abound, but none of that species which yields the oil; indeed, that is met with only near the coast. There are numbers of flowers and bulbs just shooting up from the soil. The surface is rough, and broken into gullies; and, though the country is parched, it has not that appearance, so many trees having put forth their fresh green leaves at the time the rains ought to have come. Among the rest stands the mola, with its dark brownishgreen color and spreading oak-like form. In the distance there are ranges of low hills. On the north we have one called Kanjele, and to the east that of Kaonka, to which we proceed to-morrow. We have made a considerable détour to the north, both on account of our wish to avoid the tsetse and to visit the people. Those of Kaonka are the last Batoka we shall meet, in friendship with the Makololo.

Walking down to the forest, after telling these poor people, for the first time in their lives, that the Son of God had so loved them as to come down from heaven to save them, I observed many

576

BLACK SOLDIER-ANTS.

regiments of black soldier-ants returning from their marauding expeditions. These I have often noticed before in different parts of the country; and as we had, even at Kolobeng, an opportunity of observing their habits, I may give a short account of them here. They are black, with a slight tinge of gray, about half an inch in length, and on the line of march appear three or four abreast; when disturbed, they utter a distinct hissing or chirping sound. They follow a few leaders who never carry any thing, and they seem to be guided by a scent left on the path by the leaders; for, happening once to throw the water from my basin behind a bush where I was dressing, it lighted on the path by which a regiment had passed before I began my toilette, and when they returned they were totally at a loss to find the way home, though they continued searching for it nearly half an hour. It was found only by one making a long circuit round the wetted spot. The scent may have indicated also the propriety of their going in one direction only. If a handful of earth is thrown on the path at the middle of the regiment, either on its way home or abroad, those behind it are completely at a loss as to their farther progress. Whatever it may be that guides them, they seem only to know that they are not to return, for they come up to the handful of earth, but will not cross it, though not a quarter of an inch high. They wheel round and regain their path again, but never think of retreating to the nest, or to the place where they have been stealing. After a quarter of an hour's confusion and hissing, one may make a circuit of a foot round the earth, and soon all follow in that roundabout way. When on their way to attack the abode of the white ants, the latter may be observed rushing about in a state of great perturbation. The black leaders, distinguished from the rest by their greater size, especially in the region of the sting, then seize the white ants one by one, and inflict a sting, which seems to inject a portion of fluid similar in effect to chloroform, as it renders them insensible, but not dead, and only able to move one or two front legs. As the leaders toss them on one side, the rank and file seize them and carry them off.

One morning I saw a party going forth on what has been supposed to be a slave-hunting expedition. They came to a stick, which, being inclosed in a white-ant gallery, I knew contained numbers of this insect; but I was surprised to see the black sol

BLACK SOLDIER-ANTS.

577

diers passing without touching it. I lifted up the stick and broke a portion of the gallery, and then laid it across the path in the middle of the black regiment. The white ants, when uncovered, scampered about with great celerity, hiding themselves under the leaves, but attracted little attention from the black marauders till one of the leaders caught them, and, applying his sting, laid them in an instant on one side in a state of coma; the others then promptly seized them and rushed off. On first observing these marauding insects at Kolobeng, I had the idea, imbibed from a work of no less authority than Brougham's Paley, that they seized the white ants in order to make them slaves; but, having rescued a number of captives, I placed them aside, and found that they never recovered from the state of insensibility into which they had been thrown by the leaders. I supposed then that the insensibility had been caused by the soldiers holding the necks of the white ants too tightly with their mandibles, as that is the way they seize them; but even the pupa which I took from the soldier-ants, though placed in a favorable temperature, never became developed. In addition to this, if any one examines the orifice by which the black ant enters his barracks, he will always find a little heap of hard heads and legs of white ants, showing that these black ruffians are a grade lower than slave-stealers, being actually cannibals. Elsewhere I have seen a body of them removing their eggs from a place in which they were likely to be flooded by the rains; I calculated their numbers to be 1260; they carried their eggs a certain distance, then laid them down, when others took them and carried them farther on. Every ant in the colony seemed to be employed in this laborious occupation, yet there was not a white slave-ant among them. One cold morning I observed a band of another species of black ant returning each with a captive; there could be no doubt of their cannibal propensities, for the “brutal soldiery" had already deprived the white ants of their legs. The fluid in the stings of this species is of an intensely acid taste.

I had often noticed the stupefaction produced by the injection of a fluid from the sting of certain insects before. It is particularly observable in a hymenopterous insect called the "plasterer" (Pelopaus Eckloni), which in his habits resembles somewhat the mason-bee. It is about an inch and a quarter in length, jet black in color, and may be observed coming into houses, carrying in