There were on parade the Buffs, 60th Rifles, 91st, the naval brigade of the "Boadicea," one company of Marines, two troops of Lonsdale's Horse, one troop of Natal Horse, and a battery of 7-pounders. This little army was drawn up on the usual parade-ground, not far from the river, and in the midst of a scene of the greatest natural beauty. The banks of the stream are thickly wooded, and the valley is the resort of large species of game. Crocodiles frequent the river, and make it dangerous to bathe. Thick, thorny underwood, mingled with tall reeds and date-palms, grow close down to the waters, which reflect the tall green trees that overarch above. Trees, with branches bearing bright green leaves and yellow fragile flowers, drooped nearly to the ground around the plain. Pre-eminent in splendour shone out the brilliant _combretta_, whose masses of bloom gleamed like torches amidst the dark green of the thickets, whilst the golden sheen of the fruit intensified the marked contrast of the tints. At the drinking-place used for the horses the water flowed in streamlets over the rocks and along a long red sandbank. A ledge of granite forms a rugged barrier eight or ten feet high across the river, and down the hollows of this the clear waters rush and ripple in rills, cascades, and rapids, bubbling and eddying among the great masses of rock below, in many of which, like those of the Zambesi, great holes are worn by stones which during the flood perhaps had settled in small hollows. Dark lines of trees border the river on the right, and on the left there is a fine grove of baobabs with large dark green leaves and wide-spreading branches. Crossing a sandstone hill with a spur stretching away to the eastward, and adorned with some splendid specimens of the encephalartos, or Kaffir bread, and then descending into the valley of the Umlalasi, one comes to sandstone and gneiss, rising in cliffs of 600 feet on the south of the river, but sloping away gradually on the north. The banks are covered with verdant and golden-blossomed acacias, some of them with yellow bark and the sweet gum, which is said to indicate the presence of the tsetse fly. Away to the north are to be seen groves of palm and mimosas, with stems forty feet to the lower branches. Far away beyond the plain can be seen the purple outlines of the great Lebombo range of mountains. These are to the east of the Drakenberg, and intervene between it and the sea. Stretching northward from the Pongolo river, this range crosses the Oliphant and touches the Limpopo. Its highest elevation is about 2150 feet high, and at the point at which the Umvolosi passes through the range to Delagoa Bay there is a lofty peak which reaches to 1900 feet, the river bed being there only 300 feet above sea level. Further north the range declines, and is cut through by the Pongolo and the Usuta, tributaries of the Maputa; also by the Umvolosi, the Umcomazi, the Sabia, and the Oliphant, all of which run into the Indian Ocean.