jaws from escaping where they had entered, and so force for themselves an exit where they can.
After descending the Puff-adder heights on the lower Sirorume, we entered the valley of the Limpopo, known also as the Crocodile River; the hilly district on the left shore terminated in a woody table-land to the west, the right shore being quite flat, and enclosed by prairie-like plains. The river-bed was sandy, and varied from thirty to ninety feet in width; the bank was steep, and covered with impenetrable bush or long grass. On the shore I found frequent traces of crocodiles, and a few of hippopotamuses; in the more open and clayey part I also noticed the tracks of lions and leopards. In the adjacent places we observed indications of the existence of koodoos, pallahs, waterbocks, bushbocks, hartebeests, gnus, giraffes, and zebras.
On the 22nd we reached the mouth of the Notuany, a river that rises in the Transvaal, in the western Marico district; it flows only after very heavy rain, and even then not over the whole of its course, which is 150 miles long; it is deep, and lies, as it were, in a trench; ever and again pools occur along its shores, which always contain fish, and sometimes crocodiles. From the west, the Notuany takes up a considerable number of sand-rivers. The stream was now flowing, and as its mouth was much blocked up by reeds, we felt pretty sure that no crocodiles would have made their way overland to the water, and so we ventured to enjoy a bath at the ford, which was moderately deep.
