gerous to be approached, whilft its little eyes, placed near the
top o f its fquare forehead, and the fleihy bags hanging from
each cheek like an additional pair of ears, gave it a very
hideous and frightful appearance. A great variety of lizards
were obferved, and one in particular, in the agonies o f death,
refle£ted tranfient ihades of colors that were remarkably beautiful.
The permanent ones were cerulean blue and green, with
a line down the back of dark-blue and yellow Ipots; tail
marked with waved lines orange and ferruginous ; body muri-
cated, eight inches long. Another fpecies, about a foot in
length, was entirely o f a brilliant yellow. Cameleons were
alfo plentiful, particularly of the fmall fpecies peculiar to the
Cape, the pumila o f the Syflema Nature. This reptile is fup-
pofed to be always found of the fame color with the body on
which it may happen to reft. Though in general this, perhaps,
maybe the cafe, yet the rule does not always hold good.
I have feen it remain black for many minutes, on a white
ground, and white when placed upon a black hat. Previous to
its affirming a change o f color, it makes a long infpiration, the
body fwelling out to twice its ufual fize; and, as this inflation
fubfides, the change of color gradually takes place. The only
permanent marks are two fmall dark lines palling along the
fides. The cameleons are characterized from the reft of the
lizard tribe by their perching on the extremities of the
branches of ihrubby plants, from whence, holding themfelves
faft by their prehenfile tails, with outftretched tongue they
catch the palling flies. Hence feems to have originated the
idea that this clafs of reptiles lived upon air.
The
The zebra that had been ihot was left at the foot of the hill
until our return, when it was the intention to have taken off
the ikin. We had not been abfent from it more than an hour,
in which fpace of time it had been completely evilcerated by a
troop of vultures, confifting of the condor, the percnopterus,
white crow, and the vulturine crow ; yet in no part of the
body was the Ikin broken, except that the hole in thé neck,
where the ball had entered, was a little enlarged. Out o f this
hole a great part o f the entrails had been drawn. The animal
was a female, and its full-grown foal had been dragged by the
vultures more than half out of the vagina. It feems that the
facred bird o f Egypt is a kind of caterer to the condor, and is
employed in drawing the carcafes o f animals, whilft the other
fits by “ to prey on garbage.”
In thè evening we reached a farm-houfe, fituated on the ikirts
of the colony, in the divifion of the Sea-Cow river and the
Rhinofceros-berg, where, after a very long day’s journey, our
waggons alfo arrived. In this part o f the country are ftill a
number of families that, like the people o f Sneuwberg, have
withftood the attacks of the Bosjefmans, by keeping together
and affording to each other mutual afliftance. The wealth of
the farmers here confifts o f iheep and horned cattle ; all their
crops were entirely deftroyed by the locufts.
At this place the party that had accompanied us was dif-
charged ; but, as it was the intention to ikirt the colony to the
eaftward, and pafs through the deferted divifion of the Tarka,
R R another