not much the worse for their unexpected gallop. We
therefore prepared to set off the following afternoon.

No time was lost in sending for the rest of the venison, which the
hyenas would soon have found out had it been allowed to remain during
the night. Late in the evening Chickango and one of the Hottentots, who
had been sent to bring it in, returned. As they were approaching the
camp, one of the oxen, which had been allowed to feed for a moment, was
seen suddenly to stop, and begin to roar with pain, its countenance
exhibiting the utmost helplessness. I, with others, ran forward to see
what was the matter, supposing that it must have been bitten by some
venomous insect or snake. Donald soon followed, when, telling the men
to hold the poor ox's mouth, he took out of it a curious woody-looking
substance, covered with sharp thorns.

"The poor creature has got this seed-vessel of the grapple plant into
his mouth," he said, exhibiting it. "I suspect that any of you who had
taken the same between your jaws would have roared too, if not so
loudly."

He told us that if an animal lies down upon these seed-vessels, they
stick to his skin, so that he cannot possibly get rid of them. David,
who examined it, said it came from the plant _Uncaria procumbens_; or
grapple plant.

I had gone out the next morning soon after sunrise to look round the
camp, when I saw several birds of a greyish colour, about the size of a
common thrush. Their notes, too, reminded me, as they sang their
morning song, of the mistletoe thrush. Presently they flew off
together, some way up the stream. Turning round, I saw Chickango,
Igubo, and several of Mr Fraser's blacks following, with guns in their
hands, accompanied by a pack of dogs. I pointed out the birds to them.
"'Noceros not far off," observed Chickango. Presently we saw the birds
pitch behind a neighbouring bush, and getting on one side of it, what
was my surprise to find that they were standing on the back of a huge
rhinoceros, sticking their bills into his head, and even into his ears,
and uttering a loud harsh grating cry. The rhinoceros, we could see
even at that distance, was a huge white monster, with a couple of horns,
a short one placed on the head behind the front, and pointed--a
formidable looking weapon. The object, probably, of these
rhinoceros-birds, as they may be called, in thus pitching on his body,
was to feed upon the ticks, and other parasitic insects, which