The climate strikes us at first as being much too hot, but after a while we feel it more comfortable. Then we can nearly always anticipate the weather. It is quite amusing to hear an arrival from England saying “This is another fine day!” When we meet a man at home, and have nothing to say, we nearly always call his attention to the state of the weather. When two natives meet each other the usual salutation is—“Where are you going?” the weather being so uniform that it may be taken for granted. The temperature in the shade at the hill settlements was hardly ever over 105° or under 42°, 70° being about the average. On the plains the heat was excessive. The rainy season begins about October. We have nearly six weeks of very hot weather about January without much rain. By and by the sun returns overhead again, and we have the latter rains. About April the dry season sets in. On the productions of the country we may remark that there are fruits in almost endless variety in the bush, but they are generally very small, and few of them are so good that we care to taste them twice. The _masuku_ and _mbembu_ are used very much by the natives. Sugar cane, tobacco, india-rubber are all to be found growing throughout the country. The natives chew the stalks of the sugar cane, chew and smoke tobacco, and relish the apple-like fruit found on the india-rubber vine. Thrifty housewives make various vegetable dishes (maponda) of leaves and grasses that a European would be inclined to despise. In the hot season that precedes the rains sometimes food is very scarce, and then roots and herbs still less savoury are called into use. Moreover, there are certain edibles of this kind, which are used only in years of famine. Before the arrival of the missionaries such famines were exceedingly common, but they were not all caused by the climate, many were caused by war. Nature is here so bountiful that, in ordinary circumstances, food is no object. The only season associated with hunger is a month or two immediately before the rains. If the rains do not come early, the old food may be quite finished. As soon as the rains begin, vegetable life flourishes with such luxuriance that the season of want is immediately forgotten. Once or twice in travelling during the season when everything is dried up, we have found a little boy sitting weeping on account of “hunger,” and the expression “hunger is painful” (_sala kupoteka_) reminds us that most natives know the fact by experience. Much of this is due to the tediousness of their cooking. If a party arrive half starving at a village, it may be several hours before anything can be cooked. The people do not keep flour on hand, but mill it as it is required for each meal; and as their meals are at 11 at noon and 6 at night, parties arriving in the interval must tighten their belts. Native travellers could easily sympathise with Esau when he sold his birthright. E.—FOOD AND COOKING.