It Was Not So Harmonious, And Sounded Always
As If The Birds Were Singing In A Foreign Tongue.
Some resemble the lark,
and, indeed, there are several of that family; two have notes not unlike
those of the thrush.
One brought the chaffinch to my mind, and another
the robin; but their songs are intermixed with several curious abrupt notes
unlike any thing English. One utters deliberately "peek, pak, pok";
another has a single note like a stroke on a violin-string.
The mokwa reza gives forth a screaming set of notes like our blackbird
when disturbed, then concludes with what the natives say
is "pula, pula" (rain, rain), but more like "weep, weep, weep". Then we have
the loud cry of francolins, the "pumpuru, pumpuru" of turtle-doves,
and the "chiken, chiken, chik, churr, churr" of the honey-guide.
Occasionally, near villages, we have a kind of mocking-bird,
imitating the calls of domestic fowls. These African birds have not been
wanting in song; they have only lacked poets to sing their praises,
which ours have had from the time of Aristophanes downward.
Ours have both a classic and a modern interest to enhance their fame.
In hot, dry weather, or at midday when the sun is fierce, all are still:
let, however, a good shower fall, and all burst forth at once into
merry lays and loving courtship. The early mornings and the cool evenings
are their favorite times for singing. There are comparatively few
with gaudy plumage, being totally unlike, in this respect,
the birds of the Brazils. The majority have decidedly a sober dress,
though collectors, having generally selected the gaudiest
as the most valuable, have conveyed the idea that the birds of the tropics
for the most part possess gorgeous plumage.
15TH. Several of my men have been bitten by spiders and other insects,
but no effect except pain has followed. A large caterpillar
is frequently seen, called lezuntabuea. It is covered with long gray hairs,
and, the body being dark, it resembles a porcupine in miniature.
If one touches it, the hairs run into the pores of the skin, and remain there,
giving sharp pricks. There are others which have a similar means of defense;
and when the hand is drawn across them, as in passing a bush
on which they happen to be, the contact resembles the stinging of nettles.
From the great number of caterpillars seen, we have a considerable
variety of butterflies. One particular kind flies more like a swallow
than a butterfly. They are not remarkable for the gaudiness of their colors.
In passing along we crossed the hills Vungue or Mvungwe,
which we found to be composed of various eruptive rocks.
At one part we have breccia of altered marl or slate in quartz,
and various amygdaloids. It is curious to observe the different forms
which silica assumes. We have it in claystone porphyry here,
in minute round globules, no larger than turnip-seed, dotted thickly
over the matrix; or crystallized round the walls of cavities, once filled
with air or other elastic fluid; or it may appear in similar cavities
as tufts of yellow asbestos, or as red, yellow, or green crystals,
or in laminae so arranged as to appear like fossil wood.
Vungue forms the watershed between those sand rivulets which run to the N.E.,
and others which flow southward, as the Kapopo, Ue, and Due,
which run into the Luia.
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