which I have elsewhere referred, lie in wait in the trees overhanging the game tracks. Westbeech told me that in dry winters the ponds contain so little water that the fish in them, of which the glanis is the most common species, can be easily caught with the hands. It was here that for the first time for many months I heard the howl of the silver jackal (Canis mesomelas). I found that many of the plants were identical with those that grew in the salt-lake basin, and was consequently confirmed in my opinion that the Libanani is one of the lowest parts of the whole pool-plateau district. I noticed also some handsome palm-bushes, the first I had seen since I left the vicinity of the Zambesi.
Winter was said to be the best time for game, and this was confirmed by the small amount of success that some of our party had in going out to shoot for the replenishment of our larder; but even at this period of the year I noticed the tracks of a considerable number of animals across our path, amongst them those of the black rhinoceros.
A long drive on the 18th brought us into the valley of the Nata, which we should subsequently have to cross. The river here had all the characteristics of a sandy spruit, opening at intervals into pools, the banks being overgrown with grass six or seven feet high, and containing a number of hollows, which after floods are left full of water, corresponding in this respect with many South African streams, particularly those included in the Limpopo system.
Our road next lay through a dense mapani-wood. Four years previously, Westbeech had been the first traveller to use this route by the Nata and Maytengue rivers to the Matabele country, and I accordingly
