During the night I was awakened by a general uproar in the camp, and the howling of a small terrier, which had been given me at the Cape by Admiral Bertie. One of the wild beasts which abound in the neighbourhood, had seized it across the breast, and was in the act of carrying it off, when its cries and the shouts of our people, who continued always on the alert during the night, induced the animal to loose its hold, and the dog came howling back to my tent. From the form of the wounds which it had received on each side of the body, it appeared to me, that the animal which had attacked it must have been a species of leopard. The dog afterwards recovered, but died subsequently at Chelicut, of a disease greatly resembling the distemper.
While we continued in our encampment at Tak-kum-ta, a number of small parties passed by on their way to the coast with merchandize, chiefly consisting of slaves, elephants' teeth, and grain; the natives secure the latter from the weather by enclosing it in kid-skins, which being stripped off almost entire from the animal, are afterwards tanned, and made up into the shape of the goat skins commonly used to carry water on the coast. Thermometer at this station 81°.
On Saturday the 3d of March, at ten minutes before six in the morning, we commenced our journey up the mountain of Taranta. The first part of the road, called Tellimenná, forms for about a mile a gradual ascent, which is much incumbered with loose stones and fragments of rock. We passed over this at a brisk rate, in a west by south direction, when we arrived at a steep and rugged part of the mountain thickly covered with the kolquall, which at this season bore a beautiful appearance, owing to the crimson colour of its seeds, which were closely set on the ends of every branch. This continued for about two miles, when we reached a very precipitous ascent, which shortly afterwards conducted us to a station called Mijdevella, where travellers often stay during the night, on account of the convenience attached to a spring of water in the neighbourhood. It was on this spot that Mr. Bruce slept on his way up the mountain, and, as he asserts, "in one of the many caves which
