thquake or a volcanic eruption is hardly more
destructive and hardly more irresistible. The swarms may be combated
when the insect walks along the ground, for then trenches may be dug
into which the advancing host falls. But when it flies nothing can stop
it. It is noteworthy that for eighteen years prior to the arrival of the
British pioneers in 1890 there had been no great swarms. Since that year
there have been several; so the Kafir thinks that it is the white man's
coming that has provoked the powers of evil to send this plague as well
as the murrain.

We ran down the one hundred and eighteen miles from Chimoyo to
Fontesvilla during the afternoon and night, halting for three or four
hours for dinner at a clearing where an inn and store have been built.
The pace was from ten to fifteen miles an hour. After the first twenty
miles, during which one still has glimpses of the strange isolated peaks
that spring up here and there from the plain, the scenery becomes rather
monotonous, for the line runs most of the way through thick forest, the
trees higher than those of the interior, yet not of any remarkable
beauty. For the last twenty-five miles the railway traverses a dead and
dreary flat. The gentle rise of the ground to the west conceals even the
outlying spurs of the great range behind, and to the north and south
there is an unbroken level. The soil is said to be generally poor, a
very thin layer of vegetable mould lying over sand, and the trees are
few and seldom tall. It is a country full of all sorts of game, from
buffaloes, elands, and koodoos downward to the small antelopes; and as
game abounds, so also do lions abound. The early morning is the time
when most of these creatures go out to feed, and we strained our eyes as
soon as there was light enough to make them out from the car windows.
But beyond some wild pig and hartebeest, and a few of the smaller
antelopes, nothing could be discerned upon the pastures or among the
tree clumps. Perhaps the creatures have begun to learn that the railroad
brings their enemies, and keep far away from it. A year after our visit
the murrain, to which I have already referred, appeared in this region,
and wrought fearful devastation among the wild animals, especially the
buffaloes.

The railway now runs all the way to the port of Beira, but in October,
1895, came to an end at a place called Fontesvilla, on the Pungwe River,
near the highest point to which the tide rises. We had