Both in its appearance and manner of coming, this curious substance may be likened to the manna that fell in the wilderness for the benefit of the Israelites.

This _maru_ is a whitish substance, not unlike raw cotton in appearance.

The natives make bread of it; it is rather tasteless, but is very nutritious, and only obtained at certain times--for example, it never falls at the time of full moon, and is peculiar to certain districts.
During this great southward journey many strange things happened, and we saw a host of curious sights.

I only wish I could trust my memory to place these in their proper chronological order.
We had several visitations of locusts; and on one occasion, some months after leaving home, they settled upon the country around us so thickly as actually to make a living bridge across a large creek.

On several occasions I have had to dig through a living crust of these insects, six or eight inches thick, in order to reach water at a water-hole.