Lions and hyenas roar around us, and sometimes come disagreeably near, though they have never ventured into our midst.

Strange birds sing their agreeable songs, while others scream and call harshly as if in fear or anger.
Marvellous insect-sounds fall upon the ear; one, said by natives to proceed from a large beetle, resembles a succession of measured musical blows upon an anvil, while many others are perfectly indescribable.

A little lemur was once seen to leap about from branch to branch with the agility of a frog; it chirruped like a bird, and is not larger than a robin red-breast.

Reptiles, though numerous, seldom troubled us; only two men suffered from stings, and that very slightly, during the entire journey, the one supposed that he was bitten by a snake, and the other was stung by a scorpion.
Grass-burning has begun, and is producing the blue hazy atmosphere of the American Indian summer, which in Western Africa is called the "smokes." Miles of fire burn on the mountain-sides in the evenings, but go out during the night.

From their height they resemble a broad zigzag line of fire in the heavens.
We slept on the night of the 6th of July on the left bank of the Chongwe, which comes through a gap in the hills on our right, and is twenty yards wide.