The presence of these matlametlo in the desert in a time of drought was rather a disappointment, for I had been accustomed to suppose that the note was always emitted by them when they were chin-deep in water.  Their music was always regarded in other spots as the most pleasant sound that met the ear after crossing portions of the thirsty desert; and I could fully appreciate the sympathy for these animals shown by Aesop, himself an African, in his fable of the “Boys and the Frogs”.

It is remarkable that attempts have not been made to any extent to domesticate some of the noble and useful creatures of Africa in England.  The eland, which is the most magnificent of all antelopes, would grace the parks of our nobility more than deer.  This animal, from the excellence of its flesh, would be appropriate to our own country; and as there is also a splendid esculent frog nearly as large as a chicken, it would no doubt tend to perpetuate the present alliance if we made a gift of that to France.

The scavenger beetle is one of the most useful of all insects, as it effectually answers the object indicated by the name.  Where they abound, as at Kuruman, the villages are sweet and clean, for no sooner are animal excretions dropped than, attracted by the scent, the scavengers are heard coming booming up the wind.  They roll away the droppings of cattle at once, in round pieces often as large as billiard-balls; and when they reach a place proper by its softness for the deposit of their eggs and the safety of their young, they dig the soil out from beneath the ball till they have quite let it down and covered it:  they then lay their eggs within the mass.  While the larvae are growing, they devour the inside of the ball before coming above ground to begin the world for themselves.  The beetles with their gigantic balls look like Atlas with the world on his back; only they go backward, and, with their heads down, push with the hind legs, as if a boy should roll a snow-ball with his legs while standing on his head.  As we recommend the eland to John Bull, and the gigantic frog to France, we can confidently recommend this beetle to the dirty Italian towns and our own Sanitary Commissioners.

In trying to benefit the tribes living under the Boers of the Cashan Mountains, I twice performed a journey of about three hundred miles to the eastward of Kolobeng.  Sechele had become so obnoxious to the Boers that, though anxious to accompany me in my journey, he dared not trust himself among them.  This did not arise from the crime of cattle-stealing; for that crime, so common among the Caffres, was never charged against his tribe, nor, indeed, against any Bechuana tribe.  It is, in fact, unknown in the country, except during actual warfare.  His independence and love of the English were his only faults.  In my last journey there, of about two hundred miles, on parting at the River Marikwe he gave me two servants, “to be,” as he said, “his arms to serve me,” and expressed regret that he could not come himself.  “Suppose we went north,” I said, “would you come?” He then told me the story of Sebituane having saved his life, and expatiated on the far-famed generosity of that really great man.  This was the first time I had thought of crossing the Desert to Lake Ngami.