Seed-vessels are scattered every where by these appendages.

One lies flat as a shilling with two thorns in its centre, ready to run into the foot of any animal that treads upon it, and stick there for days together.

Another (the 'Uncaria procumbens', or Grapple-plant) has so many hooked thorns as to cling most tenaciously to any animal to which it may become attached; when it happens to lay hold of the mouth of an ox, the animal stands and roars with pain and a sense of helplessness.
Whenever a part of the forest has been cleared for a garden, and afterward abandoned, a species of plant, with leaves like those of ginger, springs up, and contends for the possession of the soil with a great crop of ferns.

This is the case all the way down to Angola, and shows the great difference of climate between this and the Bechuana country, where a fern, except one or two hardy species, is never seen.
The plants above mentioned bear a pretty pink flower close to the ground, which is succeeded by a scarlet fruit full of seeds, yielding, as so many fruits in this country do, a pleasant acid juice, which, like the rest, is probably intended as a corrective to the fluids of the system in the hot climate.
On leaving the Chihune we crossed the Longe, and, as the day was cloudy, our guides wandered in a forest away to the west till we came to the River Chihombo, flowing to the E.N.E.My men depended so much on the sun for guidance that, having seen nothing of the luminary all day, they thought we had wandered back to the Chiboque, and, as often happens when bewildered, they disputed as to the point where the sun should rise next morning.

As soon as the rains would allow next day, we went off to the N.E.It would have been better to have traveled by compass alone, for the guides took advantage of any fears expressed by my people, and threatened to return if presents were not made at once.