time, and we saw
nothing of the flora. The plants and bushes were dry; but wild indigo
abounded, as indeed it does over large tracts of Africa. It is called
mohetolo, or the "changer", by the boys, who dye their ornaments of
straw with the juice. There are two kinds of cotton in the country, and
the Mashona, who convert it into cloth, dye it blue with this plant.

We found the elephants in prodigious numbers on the southern bank. They
come to drink by night, and after having slaked their thirst--in doing
which they throw large quantities of water over themselves, and are
heard, while enjoying the refreshment, screaming with delight--they
evince their horror of pitfalls by setting off in a straight line to the
desert, and never diverge till they are eight or ten miles off. They are
smaller here than in the countries farther south. At the Limpopo,
for instance, they are upward of twelve feet high; here, only eleven:
farther north we shall find them nine feet only. The koodoo, or tolo,
seemed smaller, too, than those we had been accustomed to see. We
saw specimens of the kuabaoba, or straight-horned rhinoceros ('R.
Oswellii'), which is a variety of the white ('R. simus'); and we found
that, from the horn being projected downward, it did not obstruct the
line of vision, so that this species is able to be much more wary than
its neighbors.

We discovered an entirely new species of antelope, called leche or
lechwi. It is a beautiful water-antelope of a light brownish-yellow
color. Its horns--exactly like those of the 'Aigoceros ellipsiprimnus',
the waterbuck, or tumogo, of the Bechuanas--rise from the head with
a slight bend backward, then curve forward at the points. The chest,
belly, and orbits are nearly white, the front of the legs and ankles
deep brown. From the horns, along the nape to the withers, the male has
a small mane of the same yellowish color with the rest of the skin, and
the tail has a tuft of black hair. It is never found a mile from water;
islets in marshes and rivers are its favorite haunts, and it is quite
unknown except in the central humid basin of Africa. Having a good deal
of curiosity, it presents a noble appearance as it stands gazing, with
head erect, at the approaching stranger. When it resolves to decamp, it
lowers its head, and lays its horns down to a level with the withers;
it then begins with a waddling trot, which ends in its galloping and
springing over bushes like the pallahs. It invariab