If An Ox Sees A Hole, He Carefully Avoids It;
And Old Elephants Have Been Known To Precede The Herd
And whisk off
the coverings of the pitfalls on each side all the way down to the water.
We have
Known instances in which the old among these sagacious animals
have actually lifted the young out of the trap.
The trees which adorn the banks are magnificent. Two enormous baobabs
(`Adansonia digitata'), or mowanas, grow near its confluence with the lake
where we took the observations for the latitude (20d 20' S.).
We were unable to ascertain the longitude of the lake,
as our watches were useless; it may be between 22 Deg. and 23 Deg. E.
The largest of the two baobabs was 76 feet in girth.
The palmyra appears here and there among trees not met with in the south.
The mokuchong, or moshoma, bears an edible fruit of indifferent quality,
but the tree itself would be a fine specimen of arboreal beauty
in any part of the world. The trunk is often converted into canoes.
The motsouri, which bears a pink plum containing a pleasant acid juice,
resembles an orange-tree in its dark evergreen foliage, and a cypress
in its form. It was now winter-time, and we saw nothing of the flora.
The plants and bushes were dry; but wild indigo abounded, as indeed it does
over large tracts of Africa. It is called mohetolo, or the "changer",
by the boys, who dye their ornaments of straw with the juice.
There are two kinds of cotton in the country, and the Mashona,
who convert it into cloth, dye it blue with this plant.
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