have—well known to the Dutch, but of which I, as a novice, had an experience far from pleasant some years previously—whenever they are captured they discharge a very offensive fluid from their body; and I can testify that it is ill-luck for the entomologist if this flies into his face and eyes.
On the next day Westbeech’s servant Diamond, accompanied by some Manansas, arrived at the waggons. They had all been out on a hunting-excursion.
I felt myself again a little better, and would not lose the opportunity of going out for a few miles. I was particularly anxious to obtain some birds’ skins; but although I had the best assistance of my people, I was quite unequal to follow a bird to any distance, so that I only succeeded in bagging a black swallow-tailed shrike. My exertions, however, were rewarded in another way, as I made a good collection both of plants and insects. During my stay in the Leshumo Valley I added nearly 3000 botanical and about 500 entomological specimens to my collection. During my walk I came upon several smelting-furnaces, made of the smallest of bricks; they were about six feet long and three feet wide, and had, I conjectured, been put up fifty or sixty years before by the Marutse vassals, who had resided on this side of the Zambesi before the settlement of the free-booting kingdom of the Matabele Zulus.
A day or two afterwards some Masupias came from Impalera bringing corn for sale, and Diamond, as a contribution from his hunting-expedition, brought me some buffalo-beef; he seemed inclined to grumble at the alacrity the buffalo-bulls displayed in getting out of his way, and said that the density of the
