Here all the grasses have run up to seed, and yet they are not more than two feet or so in the seed-stalks.

The pasturage is very fine.

The people employ these continuous or _set-in_ rains for hunting the elephant, which gets bogged, and sinks in from fifteen to eighteen inches in soft mud, then even he, the strong one, feels it difficult to escape.[44] _5th January, 1867._--Still storm-stayed.

We shall be off as soon as we get a fair day and these heavy rains cease.
_6th January, 1867._--After service two men came and said that they were going to Lobemba, and would guide us to Motuna's village; another came a day or two ago, but he had such a villainous look we all shrank from him.

These men's faces pleased us, but they did not turn out all we expected, for they guided us away westwards without a path: it was a drizzling rain, and this made us averse to striking off in the forest without them.