“About twelve feet long, to judge from the size of his head,” said Mr Rogers. “You must be careful, boys, and mind that the cattle are watched when they go down to drink. The crocodiles are most objectionable beasts, and I suppose the Limpopo and its tributaries swarm with them.”
They seemed now to have got into quite a reptilian paradise. Low down by the river the land was swampy, hot, and steamy to a degree; and here amidst the long rank reeds, canes, and herbage the crocodiles revelled, while water-lizards of great size made their tracks along the banks. Higher up out of the ravine where the river ran, the land was rocky and full of nooks and corners, which the sun seemed literally to bake. Here came flies innumerable, buzzing and stinging viciously when their abode was invaded, and over and about the sun-parched rocks the various kinds of lizards swarmed, and preyed upon the flies and beetles.
They were very beautiful, these flies and beetles, and lizards—the former with their brilliant colours and gauzy wings, the latter in their jewelled and polished armour, often of the most brilliant metallic tints, and always glistening in the sun.
Hundreds of the brightly armoured beetles were captured, and transferred to the boxes kept for the purpose; but it was dangerous work, for poisonous snakes lurked amongst these sun-baked rocks, twisted in sleepy knots, and so like in hue to the stones amongst which they lay that a foot might at any moment be inadvertently placed upon them.
Jack had an adventure of this kind the very day after their arrival.
There had been some talk of going, as the General proposed, after one or other of the herds of antelope feeding upon a plain a couple of miles distant; but Mr Rogers said the larder was well filled, and his idea of a pleasant hunting trip was not one where mere butchery was the rule, but where a sufficiency was killed for their daily use.
“By all means, let us destroy such noxious animals as we come across,” he said; “and I am keen sportsman enough to want to shoot some of the large game; but let us be naturalists, boys, and not simply slayers of all we see.”
The result was that they spent that day collecting insects and small reptiles, Chicory accompanying them to carry a large open-mouthed bottle of spirits with stopper and sling, and the glass protected by a stout network of soft copper wire.
Into this spirit-bottle little vipers, scorpions, spiders, and similar creatures, were dropped, Chicory holding the stopper, and throwing back his head and grinning with delight as some wriggling little poisonous creature was popped in. In fact, Chicory was an indefatigable hunter of great things and small, taking readily to natural history pursuits; but he had his drawbacks, one of which was a belief that the little snakes and tiny lizards dropped into the spirits of wine were to make some kind of soup; and he had to be stopped just in time to prevent his well amalgamating the contents of the great flask by giving it a good shake up.
“Dere’s one, Boss Dick. Dere’s nother one, Boss Jack,” he kept on saying, his quick restless eyes discovering the various objects long before his English companions.