The Bechuanas will keep on the sick-list as long as they feel any weakness; so I at last began to be anxious that they should make a little exertion to get forward on our way.  One of them, however, happening to move a hundred yards from the wagon, fell down, and, being unobserved, remained the whole night in the pouring rain totally insensible; another was subjected to frequent swooning; but, making beds in the wagons for these our worst cases, with the help of the Bakwain and the Bushmen, we moved slowly on.  We had to nurse the sick like children; and, like children recovering from illness, the better they became the more impudent they grew.  This was seen in the peremptory orders they would give with their now piping voices.  Nothing that we did pleased them; and the laughter with which I received their ebullitions, though it was only the real expression of gladness at their recovery, and amusement at the ridiculous part they acted, only increased their chagrin.  The want of power in the man who guided the two front oxen, or, as he was called, the “leader”, caused us to be entangled with trees, both standing and fallen, and the labor of cutting them down was even more severe than ordinary; but, notwithstanding an immense amount of toil, my health continued good.

We wished to avoid the tsetse of our former path, so kept a course on the magnetic meridian from Lurilopepe.  The necessity of making a new path much increased our toil.  We were, however, rewarded in lat. 18 Degrees with a sight we had not enjoyed the year before, namely, large patches of grape-bearing vines.  There they stood before my eyes; but the sight was so entirely unexpected that I stood some time gazing at the clusters of grapes with which they were loaded, with no more thought of plucking than if I had been beholding them in a dream.  The Bushmen know and eat them; but they are not well flavored on account of the great astringency of the seeds, which are in shape and size like split peas.  The elephants are fond of the fruit, plant, and root alike.  I here found an insect which preys on ants; it is about an inch and a quarter long, as thick as a crow-quill, and covered with black hair.  It puts its head into a little hole in the ground, and quivers its tail rapidly; the ants come near to see it, and it snaps up each as he comes within the range of the forceps on its tail.  As its head is beneath the ground, it becomes a question how it can guide its tail to the ants.  It is probably a new species of ant-lion (’Myrmeleon formicaleo’), great numbers of which, both in the larvae and complete state, are met with.  The ground under every tree is dotted over with their ingenious pitfalls, and the perfect insect, the form of which most persons are familiar with in the dragon-fly, may be seen using its tail in the same active manner as this insect did.  Two may be often seen joined in their flight, the one holding on by the tail-forceps to the neck of the other.  On first observing this imperfect insect, I imagined the forceps were on its head; but when the insect moved, their true position was seen.