prominence about the seventh cervical vertebra, or withers; the instinct of the young enables it to understand that it is now required to kneel down, and to remain quite still till it hears the bleating of its dam.  If you see an otherwise gregarious she-antelope separated from the herd, and going alone any where, you may be sure she has laid her little one to sleep in some cozy spot.  The color of the hair in the young is better adapted for assimilating it with the ground than that of the older animals, which do not need to be screened from the observation of birds of prey.  I observed the Arabs at Aden, when making their camels kneel down, press the thumb on the withers in exactly the same way the antelopes do with their young; probably they have been led to the custom by seeing this plan adopted by the gazelle of the Desert.

Great numbers of buffaloes, zebras, tsessebes, tahaetsi, and eland, or pohu, grazed undisturbed on these plains, so that very little exertion was required to secure a fair supply of meat for the party during the necessary delay.  Hunting on foot, as all those who have engaged in it in this country will at once admit, is very hard work indeed.  The heat of the sun by day is so great, even in winter, as it now was, that, had there been any one on whom I could have thrown the task, he would have been most welcome to all the sport the toil is supposed to impart.  But the Makololo shot so badly, that, in order to save my powder, I was obliged to go myself.

We shot a beautiful cow-eland, standing in the shade of a fine tree.  It was evident that she had lately had her calf killed by a lion, for there were five long deep scratches on both sides of her hind-quarters, as if she had run to the rescue of her calf, and the lion, leaving it, had attacked herself, but was unable to pull her down.  When lying on the ground, the milk flowing from the large udder showed that she must have been seeking the shade, from the distress its non-removal in the natural manner caused.  She was a beautiful creature, and Lebeole, a Makololo gentleman who accompanied me, speaking in reference to its size and beauty, said, “Jesus ought to have given us these instead of cattle.”  It was a new, undescribed variety of this splendid antelope.  It was marked with narrow white bands across the body, exactly like those of the koodoo, and had a black patch of more than a handbreadth on the outer side of the fore-arm.

Chapter 12.

Procure Canoes and ascend the Leeambye—­Beautiful Islands—­Winter Landscape—­Industry and Skill of the Banyeti—­Rapids—­Falls of Gonye—­Tradition—­Annual Inundations—­Fertility of the great Barotse Valley—­Execution of two Conspirators—­The Slave-dealer’s Stockade—­Naliele, the Capital, built on an artificial Mound—­Santuru, a great Hunter—­The Barotse Method of commemorating any remarkable Event—­Better Treatment of Women—­More religious Feeling—­Belief