At the correct season of the year they go off in groups into the forests to collect bark, taking with them their wives and their children, carrying with them their assegais, and fine barbed arrows with which they shoot mice, a delicacy greatly beloved by them; they take with them also bags of mealies for food, and collect bags of caterpillars—brown hairy caterpillars three inches long, which at this season of the year swarm on the trees. These they disembowel and eat in enormous quantities, and what they cannot eat on the expedition they dry in the sun and take home for future consumption. Their only method of making a fire is by rubbing two sticks dexterously together until a spark appears, with which they ignite some tinder carried in a little wooden box attached to their girdles. At night time they cut down branches from the trees, and make a shelter for themselves from the wind. It is curious to see a set of natives asleep, like sardines in a box, one black naked lump of humanity; if one turns or disturbs the harmony of the pie they all get up and swear at him and settle down again. One man is always told off to watch the fire to keep off wild beasts, and then when morning comes they pack their belongings, their treasures of bark, mice, and caterpillars, and start off along the narrow path in single file at a tremendous pace, silent for a while, and then bursting forth into song, looking for all the world like a procession of black caterpillars themselves. These forests around Zimbabwe are lovely to wander in, with feathery festoons of lichen, like a fairy scene at a pantomime; outside the forests are long stretches of coarse grass, towering above our heads in many cases, and horrible to have to push through, especially after a fall of rain. They were then in seed, and looked just like our harvest fields at home, giving a golden tinge to the whole country. Fine trees perched on the summit of colossal ant-hills cast a pleasant shade around, and if by chance we were near a stream we had to be careful not to fall into game pits, deep narrow holes hidden by the long grass, which the natives dig in the ground and towards which they drive deer and antelope, so that they get their forelegs fixed in them and cannot get out.