The botanist or the naturalist might here enjoy every hour of his day. The flowers are lovely, and animal life is here seen in many unaccustomed forms, there are the quaint, spire-like ant-hills tapering to pinnacles of fifteen feet in height; the clustered nests of the ‘family bird,’ where hundreds live together in a sort of exaggerated honeycomb; the huge yellow and black spiders, which weave their webs from tree to tree of material like the fresh silk of the silkworm, which, with the dew and the morning sun upon it, looks like a gauze curtain suspended in the air. There are, too, the deadly puff adders, the night adders, and things creeping innumerable, the green tree snake stealthily moving like a coil of fresh-cut grass; and wherever there is a rocky kopje you are sure to hear at nightfall the hideous screams of the baboons, coupled with the laugh of the jackal. But if you are not a naturalist these things pall upon you after the sensation has been oft repeated, and this was the case with us. The monotony of the journey would now and again be relieved by a cattle station, where the servants of Sechele or Khama rear cattle for their chiefs; and these always occur in the proximity of water, which we hailed with delight, even if it was only a muddy vley, or pond, trampled by the hoofs of many oxen. These cattle stations are generally large circular enclosures surrounded by a palisade, with a tree in the middle, beneath which the inhabitants sit stitching at their carosses, or skin rugs, in splendid nudity. All manner of skins hang around; hunks of meat in process of drying; hide thongs are fastened from branch to branch like spiders’ webs, which they stretch on the branches to make ‘reims’ for waggon harness; consequently the air is not too fragrant, and the flies an insupportable nuisance. One evening we reached one of these kraals after dark, and a weird and picturesque sight it was. Having penetrated through the outer hedge, where the cattle were housed for the night, we reached inner enclosures occupied by the families and their huts. They sat crouching over their fires, eating their evening meal of porridge, thrusting long sticks into the pot, and transferring the stiff paste to their mouths. In spite of the chilliness of the evening, they were naked, save for a loin-cloth and their charms and amulets. A man stood near, playing on an instrument like a bow with one string, with a gourd attached to bring out the sound. He played it with a bit of wood, and the strains were plaintive, if not sweet.