Next morning, by climbing the highest trees, we could see a fine large sheet of water, but surrounded on all sides by the same impenetrable belt of reeds. This is the broad part of the river Chobe, and is called Zabesa. Two tree-covered islands seemed to be much nearer to the water than the shore on which we were, so we made an attempt to get to them first. It was not the reeds alone we had to pass through; a peculiar serrated * grass, which at certain angles cut the hands like a razor, was mingled with the reed, and the climbing convolvulus, with stalks which felt as strong as whipcord, bound the mass together. We felt like pigmies in it, and often the only way we could get on was by both of us leaning against a part, and bending it down till we could stand upon it. The perspiration streamed off our bodies, and as the sun rose high, there being no ventilation among the reeds, the heat was stifling, and the water, which was up to the knees, felt agreeably refreshing. After some hours' toil we reached one of the islands. Here we met an old friend, the bramble bush. My strong moleskins were quite worn through at the knees, and the leather trousers of my companions were torn, and his legs bleeding. Tearing my handkerchief in two, I tied the pieces round my knees, and then encountered another difficulty.. We were still forty or fifty yards from the clear water, but now we were opposed by great masses of papyrus, which are like palms in miniature, eight or ten feet high, and an inch and a half in diameter. These were laced together by twining convolvulus, so strongly that the weight of both of us could not make way into the clear water. At last we fortunately found a passage prepared by a hippopotamus. Eager to reach to clear water, I stepped in, and found it took me at once up to the neck.

Returning nearly worn out, we proceeded up the bank of the Chobe, till we came to the point of departure of the branch Sanshureh; we then went in the opposite direction, or down the Chobe, though from the highest tree we could see nothing but one vast expanse of reed, with here and there a tree on the islands. This was a hard day's work, and when we came to a deserted Bayeiye hut on an anthill, not a bit of wood or anything else could be got for a fire, except the grass and sticks of the dwelling itself. I dreaded the snakes, so common in all old huts; but outside of it we had thousands of mosquitoes, and cold dew began to be deposited, so we were fain to crawl beneath its shelter.

* Serrated, notched like the edge of a saw.

We were close to the reeds, and could listen to the strange sounds which are often heard there. By day I had seen watersnakes putting up their heads and swimming about. There were great numbers of otters, which have made little spoors * all over the plains in search of the fishes, among the tall grass of these flooded prairies; curious birds, too, jerked and wriggled among these reedy masses, and we heard human-like voices and unearthly sounds, with splash, guggle, jupp, as if rare fun were going on in their uncouth haunts. At one time, something came near us, making a splashing like that of a canoe or hippopotamus; thinking it to be the Makololo, we got up, listened and shouted, then discharged a gun several times, but the noise continued without intermission for an hour. After a damp cold night, we began, early in the morning, our work of exploring again, but left the pontoon in order to lighten our labour.

The ant

hills are here very high, some thirty feet, and of a base so broad that trees grow on them; while the lands, annually flooded, bear nothing but grass. From one of these anthills, we discovered an inlet to the Chobe; and having gone back to the pontoon we launched ourselves on a deep river here from eighty to one hundred yards wide. I gave my companion strict injunctions to stick by the pontoon in case a hippopotamus should look at us; nor was this caution unnecessary, for one came up at our side, and made a desperate plunge off. We had passed over him. The way he made caused the pontoon to glide quickly away from him.

We paddled on from mid-day till sunset. There was nothing but a wall of reed on each bank, and we saw every prospect of spending a supperless night on our float; but just as the short twilight of these parts was commencing, we perceived, on the north bank, the village of Moremi, one of the Makololo, whose acquaintance I had made in our former visit, and who was now located on the island Mahonta. The villagers looked as we may suppose people do who see a ghost, and, in their figurative way of speaking, said, "He has dropped among us from the clouds, yet came riding on the back of a hippopotamus! We Makololo thought no one could cross the Chobe without our knowledge, but here he drops among us like a bird."

Next day we returned in canoes across the flooded lands, and found that, in our absence, the men had allowed the cattle to wander into a very small patch of wood to the west, abounding

* Spoors, foot indentations, traces, which serve as tracks.

in the insect called the tsetse, so fatally poisonous to cattle; this carelessness cost me ten fine large oxen. After remaining a few days, some of the head men of the Makololo came down from Linyanti, with a large party of Barotse, to take us across the river. This they did in fine style, swimming and diving among the oxen more like alligators than men, and taking the waggons to pieces, and carrying them across on a number of canoes lashed together. We were now among friends; so going about thirty miles to the north, in order to avoid the still flooded lands on the north of the Chobe, we turned westwards towards Linyanti, where we arrived on the 23rd of May, LIVINGSTONE.

1853.

THE CLOUD.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one.

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under
And then again I dissolve it in rain,

And laugh as I pass in thunder.

;

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast ;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;

And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead:
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake;
Pleased, the
lustre of the scales survey,
green
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play,
Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn!
See future sons and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,
And heaped with products of Sabean springs.
For thee Idume'st spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia § fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fixed His word, His saving power remains;

*

Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

* Sabea, Arabia Felix, renowned for its aromatics.

† Idumea, now Arabia Petræa.

Ophir, a region from which gold was anciently obtained. Its situation is uncertain.

§ The goddess of the moon, so called from her birthplace, Mt. Cynthus, in the isle of Delos.

The triumphal arch through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the powers of the air are chained to
Is the million-coloured bow;

my

The sphere-fire above, its soft colours wove,
Whilst the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of the earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;

chair

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores
I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when, with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
I rise and upbuild it again.

SHELLEY.

VOYAGE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.

To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly scenes and employments produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters that separates the hemispheres is like a blank page in existence.

In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene, and a connection of persons and incidents, that carry on the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separation. We drag, it is true, "a lengthened chain," at each remove of our pilgrimage; but the chain is unbroken. We can trace it back, link by link; and we feel that the last of them still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us

conscious of being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift on a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes; a gulf subject to tempests, and fear, and uncertainty, and makes distance palpable, and return precarious.