unutterably filthy, and will have to the neck or waist or stuck in his ear.

undergo a severe course of fumigation before they are presentable.

V.

For this latter position empty cartridgecases are in much request. They are stuck through a slit in the lobe of the

ear.

Victoria, July 26th, 1894. We left Bulawayo that evening with WE left Bulawaya on the 7th, arriv- the wagons and three fresh spans of ing here two days ago, having had a oxen. On the way we passed the very interesting journey, with about as scene of the two fights between the near an approach to anything like ad- Chartered Company's forces and the venture as we are likely to experience. Matabili on the march from Victoria to The day we left we lunched with Mr. Bulawayo. Mr. G. Grey was in both and Mrs. Colenbrander, who have built fights, and by close questioning we got a set of large huts close to the new very vivid descriptions of them from Bulawayo. One of these is decorated him. The extraordinary folly of the with leopard skins, which are spread Matabili strikes me more than anyon all the seats and tables, a large thing else. They absolutely thought kaross covering the bed, the whole that they had only to fire a shot, and having an air of barbaric splendor. It walk in and assegai our men without a was hoped that there would be a large struggle. They neglected almost every number of natives assembled for the natural advantage, and showed neither dance which was to follow, but from tactics nor generalship of any kind. various causes, comparatively few came. Neither of the fights seem to have Among those that did come were two been nearly as severe as those in the of Lobengula's brothers and several Soudan war, comparing them with what other chiefs. The dances consisted one has heard of the latter. In the chiefly of rows of men in line, holding their knobkerries upright in one hand, and slowly lifting each foot alternately as high as possible, and bringing it down flat on the sole with a thump that made one's own soles ache to see it. This was accompanied by a monotonous chant of some eight or ten notes repeated endlessly with the same words. One of these phrases we are told, was We reached the Shangani River to the effect that as they had no corn early on the morning of the 11th, and that year to make beer, the white man when we woke up I called to John, our should give it them. Another was in special "boy," to know on which side praise of the "good old times;" but, of the river we had outspanned, to to judge by the singing, these much- which his lucid reply was "On this vaunted times must have been lugu- side." This answer is, I think, on a brious enough to make the old cow die par with that given to us one day by on the spot. The women danced in a our native driver on our way to Basutogroup by themselves, several of them land. We saw three large birds sitting with their babies tied on their backs, on an ant-heap, and asked him what the little things taking the jogs and they were. He answered that he didn't shakes to which they were subjected know what the black one was, but the with absolute equanimity. Both men two white ones were black crows. and women were dressed in every va- After leaving the Shangani River we riety of garment, from a suit of tweeds diverged from the main road across to a mere little piece of skin hanging high, grassy tableland, very bare of from the waist. Brass anklets and bush, where so few vehicles passed bracelets were frequent, and every that the track was extremely indistinct, native carries a snuff-box, either round and occasionally every one was hunting

first fight the attackers were chiefly slave regiments. In the second they were the crack-and-hitherto-invincible pure Matabili regiments. Some of the men in these last were really very brave, and came on recklessly until they were shot down, but none got nearer than about one hundred and fifty yards from the laager.

professional wagon-maker could do it, and he supposed he would have to remain there for days while the other wagons went on to fetch a blacksmith." Such were our conductor's melancholy prognostications, and with such a prospect we retired to bed. But his pessimistic feelings having now evaporated in words, he off-loaded the wagon, had it dug and hauled out by the "boys," put in his new düsselboom, fixed it to the wagon by an ingenious arrangement of chains in place of the broken

about to find it at all. We went along | would take a blacksmith two days' the watershed, the streams on our right work to repair it, and, indeed, only a all joining the Lundi, and those on our left eventually reaching the Zambesi. Unfortunately, the track was rather on the south side of the watershed, and every mile or so we came upon a boggy hollow forming the commencement of a stream, and equally every time the buck-wagon stuck in the bog. Then followed thrashings and yells for about twenty minutes or more, and then a second or even a third span of oxen from the other wagons was put on; and after more thrashings and yells we got through. You may won-iron-work, re-loaded it, and was ready der why the second span isn't put on at

once.

to start again in four or five hours.

These sticks" recurred about sixteen times, but as there is, as Dennison says, considerable monotony about them, I will describe no more. At the last one the düsselboom gave way

It ought not to be put on at all unless absolutely necessary, for the oxen of the first span get cunning, and if they are indulged won't pull at all till the second span is put on. Our conductor was terribly disgusted | again, the only wonder being that it with this road. Naturally his pride is had held out so long, but Dennison had to get over the ground as quickly as anticipated this, and had got another possible, with as few hitches as pos- one ready, which we still have on. sible. But once he has poured out For the last few miles we were in his griefs he sets to work with great more hilly ground, and prospectors for energy and resource to overcome gold had been continually passing. the difficulties. Nevertheless, he re- The result was any number of veldt marked, with an air of resigned despair, fires, which sometimes look very fine at the sixth "stick" in eight hours, in the distance with their great colthat "this gets kind of monotonous." umns of smoke by day and lurid glow The monotony was presently changed in the sky at night, but which are most for the worse. After seeing a second odious from all other points of view, as span of oxen set to pull, and disliking they destroy the bush and make the to watch the thrashing the poor brutes great plains a sheet of black. The had to undergo, we walked on in the dust from this is so fine that it gets dark as far as the next bog. There we inside all one's clothes, and the consewere stopped by cries, and were pres- quent washing required is serious. At ently overtaken by Mumbu, one of our last we reached the Selukwe Hills, and lately acquired Mashuna boys, who outspanned near the Bonsor mine, said, "Düsselboom broke," and de- where Mr. Grey rejoined us. The road parted. We retraced our steps, to find here, if road it may be called, ceases. the buck-wagon still in the hole, while A few Scotch carts (light two-wheeled the sound of the axe betrayed where a wagons) have passed along, but no tree was being cut down to replace the tent-wagons had ever done so. From düsselboom (pole). Meanwhile vigor- this time till we got near to Victoria ous efforts were still being made with we travelled almost entirely by day, as the two spans of oxen to move the we should almost certainly have been wagon, and just as we got back we upset had we trekked by night. The heard a crack, and away went the wagons started one morning at 7.30, twenty-eight oxen up the hill at a run, with Mr. G. Grey as pioneer, cutting leaving the wagon behind. The iron- the trees before them, while the rest work in front of it had broken. "It of us went to see the Bonsor mine.

of the size of peas taken up at random we could see the gold, yet the gold left after the panning was over was considerable in amount. When we left the mine we went down a pass, through the lovely wooded hills along which the wagons were slowly threading their way. The trees were mostly either mountain acacia or mahobo-hobo, this last resembling a magnolia more than anything else, only the leaves are coarsely ribbed and wider, and it bears a fruit which we are told is very good eating. We had not gone far before we saw one of the wagons resting in a fainting condition (if wagons can be imagined to faint) against a tree, while all the drivers, leaders, conductor, and assistants were employed in trying to hoist it up so as to get it past the tree. Our contingent of men materially assisted in that process, and what between digging on one side and shoving on the other, they at last succeeded in righting it, but, alas! no longer in its pristine beauty, for all one side of the tent was battered in, and all my dressing and drawing things, which were hung on that side, were scattered in wild confusion, some spoiled and some lost. However, the damage was not as great as I at one time feared, and I have had no irreparable losses. This over, poor Dennison had to rush forward to the buck-wagon, which had taken the opportunity to get stuck ahead of us; and so it continued. No sooner was one wagon got past a critical place than another was in one. Sometimes the slope of the hill at right-angles to the direction of the track was so great that the wagons were only saved from capsizing by four men hauling with reims on the opposite side, and here Mr. McIntyre's strength was invaluable.

It consists of a shaft newly sunk on the | bearing reefs of different thicknesses), site of some pre-historic workings, the and though the quartz thus panned was dug-out holes of which are still vis- so coarsely crushed that among pieces ible; while close by are little pits and grooves in the rock believed to have been worn by grinding the quartz. Even the stones with which they ground it still lie beside or in the holes. To allow of our going down the shaft a kind of seat had been rigged up, attached by a rope round a handwindlass, and in this, guiding ourselves by our feet from hitting the walls of the shaft, we descended one by one, some sixty feet to the bottom. The ancient miners, whoever they were, had gone down within about four feet of this, and the question was why they had stopped there? Were they driven out of the country or had the gold come to an end at that depth? It is now believed that here at any rate it was not from the latter cause, but whereas near the surface the gold lies in the quartz free, at the lower level it is combined with pyrites, and it is only within the last few years that chemical processes have been discovered which permit of its being extracted from this in a way that pays. A small drive of some ten or twenty feet has been made from the bottom of the shaft across the quartz reef bearing the gold. At Johannesburg the gold-bearing strata that I saw are grey-colored, and not at once distinguishable from the surrounding rock. In this district the gold is found in white quartz (if streaky, like bacon, so much the better) between layers of dark, reddish-brown "slate." Here the quartz-reef is vertical and extends along the surface above ground for more than a mile. Experience shows that as a rule when the extension above ground is as much as that, the extension below is also considerable. The "slate" is a metamorphosed aqueous stratum. All this I gathered (I hope correctly) from Mr. McIntyre, the engineering manager, who took infinite pains to explain and show us everything. We were afterwards shown some "panning" of the quartz from here and from the Dunraven mine (where they have come on three gold

Sometimes a very steep dip with rocky sides and bottom would occur, and the absence or pres

1 Panning consists in shaking some finely crushed gold, being heaviest, forms a fine sediment at the gold-bearing rock in a basin of water, until the bottom, the rest being carefully poured off.

ence of a small stone (and there were of which it was made. The prickles

always plenty of both small and big are seeds about half an inch long, endones) at the critical moment would ing in four little points, which hold on determine whether the wagon went like grim death. You can't brush over or not; or a turn would be so them off; they must be picked off by sharp that many trees would have to hand. The plant grows in great probe cut to allow of the oxen getting fusion wherever there has been native sufficiently in a straight line to be able cultivation, and as the Makalangas to pull. It was really very exciting to always live at the tops of the kopjes watch. At last we got through the for fear of the Matabili, and grow all worst of the pass without an upset, sorts of plants in the crannies of the but the poor spider following behind rocks, you invariably find this abomigot the bolt joining the under-carriage nable weed in such places. So bad is to the body jerked out, and the four it that I am almost afraid to go up mules, pulling the driver and front kopjes now. wheels after them, left the rest mildly but firmly in a hole. Luckily this was close to where the wagons had outspanned, and the resourceful Mr. G. Grey managed to mend it somehow in the course of the evening; and by always getting out whenever the road was more than usually covered with rocks and boulders, and by continual ticing together with reims, we have actually got it here with only one more breakdown. After getting through the Selukwe Hills the road got much better, or rather, the grass plains were smooth enough, and spruits only came at intervals. We lost a whole day through our two black guides taking us wrong, and thus we only succeeded in going eighteen miles on the right road in four days. Extra delay was caused by the "long-wagon " (perch-pole) of the buck-wagon getting badly cracked in crossing a spruit on the wrong road. We had immediately to outspan, and as no suitable tree could be found to replace it, it had to be tied up with reims wound round it while wet, which shrunk when drying, so as to hold extremely tightly and firmly. Reims are one's salvation in this country. Dennison shot a beautiful reed-buck this day, which I spent my time in sketching, while Mrs. Grey and Mr. Fitzwilliam climbed up to the top of a neighboring kopje. She came down almost in tears, and looking like a prickly hedgehog. You never saw such a sight. Her whole dress, inside and out, was one mass of prickles; you could hardly see an inch of the stuff

All through this district there is a good deal of game, and riding about I constantly saw the spoor of various kinds of buck, and sometimes the animals themselves, as well as jackals and huge baboons. One day we galloped some way after several of these, until they got to ground where we could not follow them. Another day, when I was out riding with Mr. G. Grey and Mr. Fitzwilliam, we saw a honey-bird which perched near us on a tree and began uttering its chattering note. We followed it as it went from bush to bush for some way till we came to a tree from which some one had previously cut out a bees' nest with an axe. The bird still kept chattering and flew on, so we followed it again for about a hundred yards, when it stopped once more. We examined the trees beside us, and presently found one which was quite hollow, and through a small hole we could see the honeycomb inside, but as we had no axe we could not cut the tree open. Then the bird left off chattering, and we saw no more of it. What a fraud it must have thought us! It is a very insignificant-looking bird, smaller than a thrush and dirty-grey or drab color, as far as I could see. The native superstition is that if you do not give the bird some of the honey to which it leads you, it will lead the next person it finds to a snake or a lion.

We are surrounded now with native servants, with fine black skins and the minimum of clothes. They are just like children, thoughtless, callous, and good-humored. You have to tell them

the same thing over and over again | of the natives stood gazing at us. I every day, as they never remember a didn't half like it, but I expect it is general order. Sometimes I surrepti- right to impress them with our moral tiously try to draw their portraits, but they don't like it, and shift somewhere else before I have done more than a stroke or two. Some natives are very finely built men, but most are rather poorly made, and of low type.

superiority. While we were there the women were kept at that part of the circle which was farthest away from us. Mr. G. Grey says we are very lucky to have seen this threshing dance, as the natives will not do anything of the sort to order, and you only get the chance by chance.

One day, as Mr. A. Grey was riding, he heard singing in the bush some way off, and on going to see what it was, On the 21st we reached the Tokwe found a number of men, women, and River, the rocky drift being somewhat children threshing "oofoo" (a kind of troublesome for the wagons to cross. millet), who immediately on his ap- Mr. G. Grey had procured some dynapearance took to flight. They pres- mite to explode in the water in hopes ently returned, however, and he then of stunning a crocodile; and while the went to fetch the rest of us. They had wagons were crossing the drift we rea threshing-floor, round which were paired to a large deep pool a little way arranged platforms of branches about off, threw in the dynamite, and waited three or four feet high, on which were anxiously for the result, cameras in great heaps of unthreshed grain. In hand. After a pause, two or three the middle, on the ground, was the little fish floated to the top, and nothoofoo they were threshing, and rounding more. Mr. G. Grey saw the marks it was a circle of about forty men and where a crocodile had been lying on a ten women, each with a new white-sand-bank, but that hardly consoled us. peeled club rather like a heavy hockey- Yesterday morning the two Messrs. stick, with which they threshed, hitting Grey rode on to make arrangements for with the convex outer side of the knob. our stay here. We were still about All the time they sang and danced seven miles off when we inspanned round the heap, the blows coming down after dinner. Mrs. Grey and I walked in regular time to the singing. The in front of the wagons all the way, songs were all short, of one or two accompanied by the two dogs. About phrases only both as to music and two miles from the town we heard words, and mostly descending some- footsteps in front. The dogs rushed what chromatically. One especially forward barking, and then equally was rather like irregular chimes, end- quickly rushed back and kept cowering ing on what would be the third of our behind us. The terrible danger from scale. But they sang so out of tune, which they fled turned out to be Mr. G. and their intervals were often so unex- Grey, who came to meet us and show pected, that it was impossible for me us where in the town we were to outto say what their scale was. The songs span, and we walked on with him. were not specially minor in key. In Somehow we missed the right track in the intervals for rest between the the town, and wandered about trying songs (each song was repeated ad nau- to find our abode, knocking people up seam without a pause), they drank from their first sleep, and generally Kaffir beer. Mr. G. Grey ordered the being a nuisance, till at last we got to induna to fetch a calabash (hollowed- our destination, after being four hours out gourd) of beer for him to drink. on our feet. I don't wonder at our It was curious to see the chief of all missing the track, for close to the town these men, who could have crushed us there are dozens, all just alike; and it in a minute had they been so minded, was quite dark with no moon and no after a look at Mr. G. Grey, humbly go lights in the houses. Most of the and lift up the calabash and bring it to houses are set down apparently perhim without a murmur, while the rest fectly casually on the veldt, and at