compass was from the south-east, or east-southeast
true. A sudden rain-storm compelled us
to camp on the north bank, and here we found
ourselves under the shadows of the primeval
forest.
Judging from the height and size of these
trees j I doubt whether the right bank of the
Livingstone at the mouth of the Lowwa river
was ever at any time inhabited. An impenetrable
undergrowth consisting of a heterogeneous variety
of ferns, young palms, date, doum, Raphia
vinifera, and the Mucuna pruriens— the dread
of the naked native for the tenacity with which
its stinging sharp-pointed bristles attach themselves
to the skin— masses of the capsicum
plant, a hundred species of clambering vines,
caoutchouc creepers, llianes, and endless lengths
of rattan cane intermeshed and entangled, was
jealously sheltered from sunlight by high, overarching,
and interlacing branches of fine greystemmed
Rubiaceae, camwood and bombax, teak,
elais palms, ficus, with thick fleshy leaves, and
tall gum-trees. Such is the home of the elephants
which through this undergrowth have
trodden the only paths available. In the forks
of trees were seen large lumps, a spongy excrescence,
which fosters orchids and tender
ferns, and from many of the branches depended
the Usneae moss in graceful and delicate fringes.
Along the brown clayey shores, wherever there
is the slightest indentation in the banks and
still water, were to be found the Cyperaceae
s ed g e , and in deeper recesses and shallow water
the papyrus.
In such cool, damp localities as the low banks
near the confluence of these two important
streams, entomologists might revel. The My-
riapedes, with their lengthy sinuous bodies of
bright shiny chocolate or deep black colour,
are always one of the first species to attract
one’s attention. Next come the crowded lines
of brown, black, or yellow ants, and the termites
, which, with an insatiable appetite for
destruction, are ever nibbling, gnawing, and
prowling. If the mantis does not arrest the
eye next, it most assuredly will be an unctuous
earth caterpillar, with its polished and flexible
armour, suggestive of slime and nausea. The
mantis among insects is like the python among
serpents. Its strange figure, trance-like attitudes,
and mysterious ways have in all countries appealed
to the imagination of the people. Though
sometimes five inches" in length, its waist is only
about the thickness of its leg. Gaunt, weird,
and mysterious in its action, it is as much
a wonder among insects as a mastodon would
be in a farmyard. The ladybird attracts the
careless eye as it slowly wanders about, by its
brilliant red, spotted with black—-but if I were
to enter into details of the insect life I saw