observed that wherever there was a stratum of mould, it never failed to be sown with kaffir corn. I noticed a good many specimens of tropical vegetation, the first I had seen since leaving Grahamstown; but, on the other hand, I saw a large number of plants distinctively belonging to the temperate zones, such as Campanula, Saponaria, Veronica, and some umbelliferous Euphorbiaceæ; out on the plains the grass stood four feet high. I shot a heron and several finches, including two fire-finches; also two spurred plovers, which probably I should not have noticed but for their peculiar cry of “tick-tick.” The women who were working in the fields were much cleaner than the Batlapins; and after I left Molema’s Town I was satisfied that these northern Barolongs, as they are called, are altogether of a higher grade not only than the Batlapins, but than the Mokalana, Marokana, or south-western Barolongs; in agriculture, however, and especially in cattle-breeding, they are far surpassed by the south-eastern Barolongs, who reside in and about Thaba Unshu, which contains over 10,000 inhabitants, the people living to a large extent upon their horse-breeding, which cannot be successfully carried on either in the Molapo district or in the Transvaal, on account of the horse-plague.
I did not omit next day to pay my visit to Molema. The chief received me in his little court-yard, and after introducing me to his wife and sons, whose apartments were close at hand, sent for some wooden stools for myself and Mr. Webb, who
