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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