There Were 12 Laminae To The Inch.
These Are Easily Counted, Because There Is Usually A Scale Of Pure Silica
Between Each, Which Has Not Been So Much Affected By The Weather
As The Rest Of The Ring Itself:
The edges of the rings
thus stand out plainly.
Mr. Quekett, having kindly examined some specimens,
finds that it is "silicified CONIFEROUS WOOD of the ARAUCARIAN type;
and the nearest allied wood that he knows of is that found,
also in a fossil state, in New South Wales." The numbers of large game
were quite astonishing. I never saw elephants so tame as those near
the Chiponga: they stood close to our path without being the least afraid.
This is different from their conduct where they have been accustomed to guns,
for there they take alarm at the distance of a mile, and begin to run
if a shot is fired even at a longer distance. My men killed another here,
and rewarded the villagers of the Chiponga for their liberality in meal
by loading them with flesh. We spent a night at a baobab, which was hollow,
and would hold twenty men inside. It had been used as a lodging-house
by the Babisa.
As we approached nearer the Zambesi, the country became covered
with broad-leaved bushes, pretty thickly planted, and we had several times
to shout to elephants to get out of our way. At an open space,
a herd of buffaloes came trotting up to look at our oxen,
and it was only by shooting one that I made them retreat.
The meat is very much like that of an ox, and this one was very fine.
The only danger we actually encountered was from a female elephant,
with three young ones of different sizes. Charging through
the centre of our extended line, and causing the men to throw down
their burdens in a great hurry, she received a spear for her temerity.
I never saw an elephant with more than one calf before.
We knew that we were near our Zambesi again, even before the great river
burst upon our sight, by the numbers of water-fowl we met.
I killed four geese with two shots, and, had I followed the wishes of my men,
could have secured a meal of water-fowl for the whole party.
I never saw a river with so much animal life around and in it,
and, as the Barotse say, "Its fish and fowl are always fat."
When our eyes were gladdened by a view of its goodly broad waters,
we found it very much larger than it is even above the falls. One might try
to make his voice heard across it in vain. Its flow was more rapid
than near Sesheke, being often four and a half miles an hour, and,
what I never saw before, the water was discolored and of a deep brownish-red.
In the great valley the Leeambye never becomes of this color.
The adjacent country, so far north as is known, is all level,
and the soil, being generally covered with dense herbage, is not abraded;
but on the eastern ridge the case is different; the grass is short,
and, the elevation being great, the soil is washed down by the streams,
and hence the discoloration which we now view.
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