sun, and partly by something in the climate or soil which we do not yet know.  We see something of the same sort in trout and other fish which take their colour from the ponds or streams in which they live.  The members of our party were much less embrowned by free exposure to the sun for years than Dr. Livingstone and his family were by passing once from Kuruman to Cape Town, a journey which occupied only a couple of months.

We encamped on the Kalomo, on the 1st of October, and found the weather very much warmer than when we crossed this stream in August.  At 3 p.m. the thermometer, four feet from the ground, was 101 degrees in the shade; the wet bulb only 61 degrees:  a difference of 40 degrees.  Yet, notwithstanding this extreme dryness of the atmosphere, without a drop of rain having fallen for months, and scarcely any dew, many of the shrubs and trees were putting forth fresh leaves of various hues, while others made a profuse display of lovely blossoms.

Two old and very savage buffaloes were shot for our companions on the 3rd October.  Our Volunteers may feel an interest in knowing that balls sometimes have but little effect:  one buffalo fell, on receiving a Jacob’s shell; it was hit again twice, and lost a large amount of blood; and yet it sprang up, and charged a native, who, by great agility, had just time to climb a tree, before the maddened beast struck it, battering-ram fashion, hard enough almost to have split both head and tree.  It paused a few seconds—­drew back several paces—­glared up at the man—­and then dashed at the tree again and again, as if determined to shake him out of it.  It took two more Jacob’s shells, and five other large solid rifle-balls to finish the beast at last.  These old surly buffaloes had been wandering about in a sort of miserable fellowship; their skins were diseased and scabby, as if leprous, and their horns atrophied or worn down to stumps—­the first was killed outright, by one Jacob’s shell, the second died hard.  There is so much difference in the tenacity of life in wounded animals of the same species, that the inquiry is suggested where the seat of life can be?—­We have seen a buffalo live long enough, after a large bullet had passed right through the heart, to allow firm adherent clots to be formed in the two holes.

One day’s journey above Sinamane’s, a mass of mountain called Gorongue, or Golongwe, is said to cross the river, and the rent through which the river passes is, by native report, quite fearful to behold.  The country round it is so rocky, that our companions dreaded the fatigue, and were not much to blame, if, as is probably the case, the way be worse than that over which we travelled.  As we trudged along over the black slag-like rocks, the almost leafless trees affording no shade, the heat was quite as great as Europeans could bear.  It was 102 degrees in the shade, and a thermometer placed under the tongue or armpit showed that our blood