It was the report of extensive ruins, ‘larger,’ said a native, ‘than those of Zimbabwe,’ which induced us to make an expedition involving considerable hardships and unknown risks down in the direction of the Sabi River. Our waggons, of course, could not go, as our way would be by the narrow native paths. Previous experience had warned us against depending on the native huts, so for the transport of our tents, bedding, and provisions we had to make considerable preparations.

At Fort Victoria we borrowed seven donkeys from the Chartered Company, and we engaged a few natives of reputed respectability under the command of a man called Mashah, quite the most brilliant specimen of the Makalanga race we came across during our sojourn in the country. He, his father and his mother and his wife, a sister of our old friend Umgabe, had been captured some years ago by the Matabele and spent several years in servitude, during which time he had learnt the Zulu tongue and the [248]more energetic habits of this stronger race. Eventually, after the death of his father and mother, he and his wife had escaped and returned to Umgabe’s kraal, and on the arrival of the Chartered Company’s pioneer force Mashah placed his services at their disposal. He greatly distinguished himself by saving the lives of a band of the pioneers when on a wild prospecting trip, for which service he received a present of a Martini-Henry rifle, of which he was naturally very proud.

Mashah’s Makalanga brethren call him ‘the white man’s slave,’ from his devotion to the new race, and he constantly affirmed that if ever the white man left this country he would go with them, for he was heartily sick of the petty jealousies and constant squabbles of his countrymen. He was a strange object to look upon with his tawny B.S.A. hat with an ostrich feather in it, his shirt with a girdle round his waist, and bare legs. He never once grumbled at anything he had to do, he was never tired, and kept our other Kaffirs in excellent order. As for the rest of them, they were as naked as God made them, save for the insignificant loin-cloth. A man called Metzwandira was told off as our body-servant, to wash the cups and plates and spoons, which latter treasures he counted carefully over to us after every meal. We got greatly attached to this individual, his manners were so gentle and courteous and his voice so soft and silvery. One and all of them were delighted to become possessed of our rejected milk tins, &c., with which [251]they made bracelets, seven inches wide, by cutting off the two ends of the tin and drilling holes along the edge. One man tied the lid of a ‘bully beef’ tin round his neck, another fastened the round bottom of a milk tin in a jaunty fashion on to his black hair. Every tin we opened and finished was eagerly picked up by our followers and carried in net bags all the way, with a view to making some object of ornament out of them. Even when given an old pair of boots, the recipient only took out the brass hooks and eyes to fasten as ornaments in his loin-cloth, and cast the rest away.

On leaving Fort Victoria we followed the Chartered Company’s road for forty miles northwards with our waggons to Makori post station. One day we were encamped near the two large villages of Umfanipatza and Sibibabira built on two rocks, but now, with the confidence inspired by the presence of the Chartered Company, the inhabitants are beginning to build huts on the flat space around. We paid a visit to them both, and admired the tall euphorbia which grew in them and the rich entanglement of begonia and other creepers then in flower. In one hut we found a man weaving a bark blanket very neatly with no loom, only platting it with his fingers. It was done with a kind of pink twine made of some bark.

At Makori post station, under the shade of wide-spreading trees, and in close proximity to some fantastic granite rocks, which rose like gigantic [252]menhirs out of the plain and were covered with an almost scarlet lichen, we passed several busy days, preparing cruppers, girths, and breast-bands for our seven pack-donkeys; bags for our coffee, sugar, and tea; cobbling our boots and overhauling our clothes, and nursing four fever patients, for there had been two days of chilly drizzling rain, the inevitable result of which was fever for some of our party. The post station lay about one mile from our camping-ground; the two huts where the B.S.A. men lived were situated on a rocky kopje full of caves, in one of which their horse was stabled, and from the top of the rock an extensive view was gained over the high plateau, well wooded just here and studded with rocks of fantastic shape. Here and there thick volumes of smoke rose from the grass fires common all over the country at this season of the year, which looked for all the world like distant manufacturing towns, and suggested the comparison of a view from a spur of the Derbyshire hills over the plain of Cheshire, with Stockport, Manchester, and other centres of industry belching forth their dense volumes of smoke.

On August 14 we started on our journey. It was a lovely morning, and our progress was very slow, for our cavalcade was so heterogeneous—my wife and I on horseback, Messrs. Swan and King with a horse between them, three white men to look after the donkeys, and Mashah and his Makalangas to carry what the donkeys could not. We straggled terribly at first, for the donkeys were obstinate and their pack-saddles [253]unsteady, the natives were fresh and anxious to get along, so we had to call for frequent halts to readjust ourselves, which gave us ample opportunity for looking around. The country here is sown broadcast with strange granite rocks; one group had formed themselves into an extraordinary doorway, two columns on either side about sixty feet high, with a gigantic boulder resting on the top of them for the lintel. Like the structures of a giant race, these strange rocks rise out of the thick vegetation in all directions. Presently, as we were experiencing some little difficulty in getting our raw cavalcade across a stream, a Makalanga joined us who had been born without hands. To his left stump had been attached, by means of a leather thong, the claw of a bird; with the assistance of this he ate some food we gave him with marvellous dexterity, and fired his gun. He was a bright cheery individual, evidently greatly respected by his more gifted comrades.

[254]

We only accomplished seven miles this first day, owing to the difficulties of progression, and in the afternoon found ourselves encamped by a wretched village called Chekatu. Here they had no cattle and no milk to sell us owing to Matabele raids. The chief, Matzaire by name, came to visit us with his iron sceptre in his hand, which made us think of the rods of iron with which certain Israelitish kings are stated to have ruled. We climbed amongst the huts before sundown and came across an old hag busily engaged in shaving the heads of her younger sisters, cutting their woolly locks into all sorts of odd shapes as fancy or fashion suggested. She refused our most [255]tempting offers to part with her razor, and it was not till some time afterwards that we were able to obtain a specimen of this Makalanga ironcraft.

Next day we crossed two rivers, tributaries of the Tokwe, and after a prosperous ride of ten miles reached Sindito’s kraal, called Sekatu, the inhabitants of which took us for a Matabele impi, and would not come down till Mashah had screamed to them that we were no rogues, but honest men. We gave the chief a cup of tea, which he detested, and as soon as politeness permitted he said he had had enough. He returned the compliment by giving us a calabash of good beer, which we drank with pleasure. Sekatu was rather a nice village, on a hill covered with thick jungle, amongst which grew in profusion cucumbers, about six inches long, of a rich orange colour, with thorns outside and with a delicious bright green pulp inside. They are the Cucumis metuliferus, specimens [256]of which may be seen in the museum at Kew Gardens. We had seen these before, and looked upon them as poisonous, until our natives partook of them and gave us confidence. Ever afterwards, as long as they were in season, we indulged freely in this delicious fruit, and voted it the best we had come across in Mashonaland.

The next day we halted for half an hour at a village called Imiridzi, where we acquired a bag of bark fibre, made by knitting the twine with two sticks for knitting-needles. These articles seemed very popular in this village, and nearly everyone was engaged [257]in their production. Midday found us at a very large kraal, the chief place in the dominions of a powerful Makalanga chief called Gutu. Gona is the name of the kraal, and it is completely buried between two high granite kopjes. At the entrance to it some tall trees are completely hung with provisions packed [258]away in their long sausage-like bundles—bags of locusts, caterpillars, sweet potatoes, and other delicacies. These trees we henceforth called ‘larder trees,’ and found them at nearly every village. The inhabitants of Gona were unusually rich in savage ornaments, and we annexed many snuff-boxes, knives, and other oddments. The chief was unfortunately away, but his representative brought us fine pots of beer and milk, and we made a hearty meal despite the dense and rather unsavoury mass of natives which surrounded us during its consumption. They have a plentiful growth of tobacco plants near Gutu’s kraal, and large fields of rice, in which the women were just then busily engaged in making the broad furrows; they have very prettily carved doors to their huts, and many of the men wear sandals on their feet. Altogether Gona struck us as one of the most prosperous kraals we had seen in the country.

As we journeyed eastwards the appearance of the people was certainly wilder. We here saw their heads decorated with curious erections of woven grass, fastened into their hair and reaching an elevation of a foot, like miniature Eiffel towers on their heads;1 and at a village called Muchienda we acquired two quaint-shaped straw hats with ostrich feathers sticking in the top, quite different to anything we had seen elsewhere. As we approached this village a long string of natives passed us on their way to hunt; on their heads they carried bark cases full of nets, [259]which they stretch across the valleys and drive the game into them. Muchienda was a lovely village by a rushing stream full of rocks, which formed a little waterfall; the stream was shaded by magnificent timber, and a background of lovely mountains made us think Muchienda an ideal spot, at which we would willingly have tarried longer.

Every day, as we approached the Sabi Valley, the scenery became grander; the dreary high plateau gave place to deep valleys and high rugged mountains; the vegetation was much more luxuriant and the atmosphere many degrees hotter, so hot that during our midday halts we did not care to wander very far from our camp, especially as we had a good deal of manual labour to perform apart from the actual travelling, in tent pitching, bed making, and cooking, for our white men were generally so tired with driving and packing the donkeys that we could not ask them to do anything after the march was over.

We soon got accustomed to sleeping on the ground. When it was unusually rugged, for the [260]grass grows here in tufts like the hair on the niggers’ heads, we got grass cut on which to lay our rugs; occasionally we found it necessary to encamp on spots over which a grass fire had passed, and then we got hopelessly black, and lived like sweeps until we reached a stream, where we could wash ourselves and our clothes.

[261]

Lutilo, with the village of Luti perched upon one of its lower precipices, is quite a grand mountain, almost Alpine in character, with exquisite views over the distant Sabi and Manica Mountains. Here we tarried for almost a whole day to visit an insignificant set of ruins a few miles distant, called Metemo, but which formed a link in the great chain of forts stretching northwards. It had been built in three circles of very rough stone, somewhat ingeniously put together on the top of a rounded granite hill, but hopelessly ruined. So we only tarried there a while to make a plan, and to rest, and enjoy the lovely view.

The country around here is very thickly wooded, and on our return to our camp a herd of deer passed close to us, a species known to the Dutch as Swartvit-pens, or ‘swarthy white paunches,’ but we failed to get one, a matter of considerable regret from a commissariat point of view, for meat is scarce in the villages about here, and our tinned supplies were getting low.

We struck our camp at Lutilo rather late in the afternoon, and only got as far as a river called the ’Nyatzetse, the crossing of which involved the unloading of our animals. On the way we passed through two villages, where the inhabitants were busily engaged in building huts, for it was evidently a new encampment, and in making beer, which was too new to drink; the land around was being freshly turned up for their fields, after the approved Makalanga [262]fashion. First they clear a space of jungle, leaving the larger trees, and pile up the brushwood round the roots, then they set fire to the heaps, and when it is consumed the tree is killed, and more easy to cut down.

The next day brought us at a very early hour to the site of the Matindela ruins, which was to be our halting-place for a few days. The ruins certainly are fine, but far inferior to those of Zimbabwe; they are perched on the top of a bare granite rock about 150 feet high, a most admirable strategical position.2 In the centre of them we pitched our tents for our welcome halt of three days, and made ourselves as comfortable as rain would permit, for it fell in torrents here even though it was the dry season. The [263]term ‘Matindela’ means ‘guinea-fowl,’ quantities of which birds are found around here, as indeed they are in most parts of this country.

We were now only twenty miles from the Sabi River, and the country around was almost deserted, ruined villages crowned most of the heights, and the deserted fields and devastation in every direction were lamentable to behold. There were evidences, too, of a fairly recent raid, in which the poor Makalangas had been driven out of their homes and probably carried into slavery. By common consent the two great Zulu chiefs, Lobengula and Gungunyana, whose embassy visited England last year, consider the Sabi as their respective boundary for marauding expeditions. On this occasion I believe Gungunyana and his Shangans were to blame, who, finding that Lobengula was cut off by the Chartered Company from this part of his district, had made bold to cross the Sabi and raid on the western side, bringing destruction into the Makalanga homes, which in former years had here been thought very secure, being, as they were, far from Lobengula and just out of Gungunyana’s recognised district.

The Makalangas have the greatest horror of the Shangans, who dwell across the Sabi, and do Gungunyana’s bidding. One day at Matindela we brought home a specimen of a curious fruit which hangs from the trees, eighteen inches to two feet long, like thick German sausages; it has beans inside, and we asked Mashah if it was good to eat: ‘No Makalangas eat [264]umvebe,’ as he called it, ‘only the Shangans and baboons.’

Whilst at Matindela we sampled several kinds of strange fruit: firstly the Kaffir orange, a kind of strychnia, which is a hard fruit with yellow pulp inside around seeds, and of which every traveller should beware of eating if not quite ripe—an error into which several of our party fell; it is apt to produce violent sickness under those conditions, and at best it is painfully astringent, causing horrible facial contortions when you eat it, as most of the fruits about here do. Amongst other things, they brought to our camp at Matindela large quantities of the delicious cucumbers, monkey-nuts, sweet potatoes, and a sweet fruit which you chew and spit out like sugar-cane, which they call matoko. From the gigantic trees around us, the far-famed baobab trees, we gathered the nuts with the refreshing cream of tartar pulp inside. The baobab is the great feature of Matindela Hill; there are a dozen of them on it, huge giants, which in their growth have knocked down large portions of the walls. Though probably these trees are not as old as report says, nevertheless their presence here proves that these ruins have been utterly abandoned for many centuries. It is another problem to prove how their thick roots find sustenance for so huge a vegetable growth, perched as they are on an almost soil-less granite rock. Doubtless these roots follow the fissures in the granite and obtain the required moisture from some considerable [265]distance. The effect, however, is exceedingly odd to see these colossal trees growing in no depth of soil on the top of a granite rock.

I had always been sceptical about the honey-bird until its virtues were properly proved to us when at Matindela. An insignificant little bird, with a significant chirp, led our men over rocks and through jungle till they actually found honey, so that we could no longer indulge in doubts as to this mysterious gift, which, like the water-finding divining rods, I will leave to others to explain.

Traces of recent life around Matindela were numerous: the valleys had all at one time been ploughed: ruined huts, constructed high up in the trees, had served as outlooks for the agriculturists, bark beehives were in the trees, but the villages were all blackened and burnt, the granaries knocked down and the inhabitants gone, no one knows where. Never during any camp of lengthened duration were we visited by so few natives as at Matindela. About here game is very plentiful; we sighted fresh elephant and giraffe ‘spoor,’ and we personally made the acquaintance of zebras, kudu, and other kinds of antelope. Across the valley below was an old and now disused stockade for catching game, and hunting-parties in this locality have been numerous. These parties are arranged by the Makalangas on a small or large scale; sometimes, when they have an elaborate system of stockades, they just drive the game towards a cul de sac or a narrow gap where [266]men are hidden in the grass; sometimes they have great parties forming two half-moons; one of these stations itself behind a kopje, whilst the other, with dogs and shouting, drives the game to them.

Their game laws give rise to frequent squabbles amongst the chiefs; it is generally understood that, if a man wounds a buck and another kills it, the wounder claims the carcass, but the killer is entitled to take whichever limb he wishes. There is a tribe near Zimbabwe who will not eat a buck unless it has had its throat cut, and so they endeavour first to wound it, and then proceed to cut its throat. For small buck, hares, &c., they make traps across the narrow paths with a beam which falls when the animal treads on the plank below, being fixed on the path between two sloping rows of stakes.

Our course from Matindela was north-east—not the most direct route to the Sabi, which is only about twenty miles due east, but we had nobody with us who knew the way, and we had to go to a village for a guide. After a ride of seven miles we reached a curious lofty mountain called Chiburwe, close on 1,000 feet above the plain; it is almost round, and its flanks are decorated with huge granite boulders rising out of euphorbia, baobabs, and rank tropical vegetation. On the side we first reached this mountain the vegetation was too dense to allow us to ascend, so we had to ride to the northern side and go up by a slippery slope of black granite, the ordinary approach used by the natives, whose bare feet cling readily to the rocks, [267]but which was horrible for feet encased in European boots. The summit is flat and grassy like a Brighton down, being covered with a soft small stagshorn moss, delightful to lie upon. This spot is the happy play-ground of two native villages, which are placed on either side of the mountain; here they are sublimely safe and free from the raids of their enemies, and Chiburwe forms a sort of Makalanga outpost in the direction of the Sabi. Amongst other names mentioned by Portuguese writers which are still retained in the locality we find Chiburga as a stronghold, where the Monomatapa’s wives were kept. I think it highly probable that this is the spot. On the summit we found several sets of holes for the Isafuba game, and the inhabitants we came across seemed more than usually timid. Our view was indescribably lovely, with Lutilo and the spots we knew well behind us, and the mysterious blue mountains of Manica before us.

In a rocky crevice we found one of the miserable villages of Chiburwe, with no beer, no milk, no fowls and no eggs to be had; it appeared to be solely inhabited by two women grinding millet, who were much afraid of us, and retired into the darkest recesses of their huts. Their ingenuity in utilising bark is exemplified up here, where mud is scarce, for they make their granaries of the bark of the baobab, only covering the edges with mud, and binding them round with withes.

For two days after leaving Chiburwe we wandered [268]through trackless forests, guided only by a notion of the direction we wished to go, for we could not annex a native guide. A mile or two from Chiburwe we found a ruined fort of the best period of Zimbabwe work, with courses of great regularity, but much of the wall had been knocked down by the baobab trees which had grown up in it. Nobody could give us a name for this ruin in the wilderness, so we called it Chiburwe, measured it, took notes on it, and rode on.

The forest scenery was grand and impressive in its solitude; sometimes we had great difficulty in getting our animals through the thick undergrowth; the trees were rich in colour, red and light green, equal to any of our autumnal tints, out of which now and again rose granite boulders. The crossing of the River Mwairari, a fine tributary of the Sabi, gave us a little trouble; it has a fine volume of water with occasional rapids, waterfalls, and high rocks, and we had to follow its right bank for several miles before we could get our animals across; the river bed was luxuriant in tall pampas grass and patches of papyrus.

On the second afternoon after leaving Chiburwe we sighted the Sabi River, having gone miles out of our way; it is a really magnificent stream even here so far inland, and is navigable now for canoes very little below where we struck it. In ancient times it must have been navigable for larger craft, for all African rivers are silting up. There is little doubt but that the ancient builders of the ruins in Mashonaland, [269]the forts and towns between the Zambesi and the Limpopo, utilised this stream as their road to and from the coast; and as the country again is opened out it may still be found useful as a waterway for small craft. Where we struck the Sabi it is a rapid river, flowing through a gorge and with a rocky bed; there are no marshes here, but fertile-looking slopes leading down to it, which appeared to us to promise well for the future agriculturists who settle on its banks, though the rainfall, which takes place only in summer, and for the space of only four months, will be a drawback to cereals. Now these slopes are entirely deserted, and about here we saw no villages, nor natives, nor paths, for days, doubtless owing to the raids of Gungunyana and his Shangans from across the stream. There is no doubt about it, the world is not full yet. In Mashonaland there exist tens of thousands of acres of fertile land entirely unoccupied. Thanks probably to the Matabele raids, the population is here exceedingly scanty, and when one travels through the long-deserted stretches of country, healthy, well watered, and capable of growing anything, which still exist between the Zambesi and the Limpopo, one cannot help thinking that those who complain of the world being too full, and that there is no opening for colonisation, are a century or two before their time.

Everybody revelled in the waters of the Sabi that evening—bathing and washing clothes occupied most of our time until it was dark; but, alas, our camp was [270]pitched on ground over which a grass fire had passed, and the good effects of our Sabi wash were more than obliterated. We again plunged into the trackless wilderness, and it was not till the second day after leaving the river that we once more joyfully found ourselves in a native path leading in the direction which we ought to go; but we followed it for over thirty miles before we came across a village. This was called Zamopera, on the banks of a pleasant stream. We were so pleased to see people again and to have a chance of replenishing our stock of provisions that we tarried there for the best part of a day, and pitched our camp beneath the shadow of a friendly rock. Crowds of men and women from Zamopera came to visit us; wild-looking people they were—the men with long matted hair hanging like a fringe over their faces, and hung with beads and cowrie-shells, whilst the women here cut off all their hair except a circle in the middle, which is short and threaded with beads in seven rows, four of white outside and three of red in the centre, looking exactly like round bead mats on the top of their heads. We were now in the country of another great Makalanga chief, called Gambidji, whose kraal, perched on a lofty rock, we sighted in the distance, but had not time to visit.

In the villages about here, which are numerous and flourishing, we saw many curious objects, some of which we acquired, others we could not strike a bargain for: a native razor, bone dollasses, and quaint-shaped battle-axes were added to our collection. [271]Mafusaire’s village is perched amongst odd-shaped boulders, fantastic as the rocks in Dovedale, ever varying in form. The inhabitants were a very friendly lot, and were almost beside themselves with delight when my wife took down her hair and showed them its length. They greatly prized a gift of a few of these long hairs, which they will doubtless keep as a memento of the first white lady who ever came amongst them.

The fear of the Makalanga of horses is most curious; even our own men would not touch them, and the villagers were quite awestruck when we mounted. They generally followed us in crowds for a little distance from the village, and screamed with delight when we trotted, scampering and capering by our sides.

We passed by the tomb of a chief on the afternoon after leaving Mafusaire’s; it consisted of a mound with a circular construction of stones on the top of it, over which is a thatched roof standing on posts; on the top of the stones stood a pot, in which beer is periodically put, for the delectation of the deceased.

We were now in the immediate neighbourhood [272]of Mount Wedza, the highest point in Mashonaland, with an elevation of over 6,000 feet above sea level. It is for the most part a dark forest-clad ridge, and it is from here that the natives of Gambidji’s country get the iron ore which they smelt in their furnaces and convert into tools and weapons. The villages in this district are entirely given up to the smelting business, and outside the kraals usually are erected two or more furnaces. They are still in the Stone Age here, using for anvils and hammers pieces of hard diorite. One of these villages where we halted for a while was, to our astonishment, called Smet. Not believing our ears, we asked again and again, and got the same reply. The only solution to this strange nomenclature seems to be, that they either got the name from some Dutch trader or from some enterprising Makalanga who had been down to work in the Kimberley mines. For long these natives have been in the habit of doing this, tramping all the way from the Zambesi to the diamond-fields, and not returning thence until they have acquired enough wealth to buy a wife or two and settle themselves in life.

A man from Smet, who was going to ’Mtigeza’s kraal, volunteered to act as our guide. He carried with him three large iron hoes which he had made, and for which he expected to get a goat at the kraal. Gambidji’s country is very extensive, extending nominally from the Sabi to a ridge which we crossed before reaching ’Mtigeza’s, and most of the iron-smelting villages recognise his sovereignty. [273]

Two chiefs of the name of ’Mtigeza live around Mount Wedza, both claiming to be the descendants of the old ’Mtigeza stock. Our ’Mtigeza was a queer little old man, almost in his dotage, but considered very powerful by his neighbours, and this was evidenced by the villages being more in the open, and not seeking protection from rocky heights. His fortress is a curious one, situated on an extensive plateau 4,800 feet above the sea level, with disjointed low masses of rocks dotted about. Around the central mass of rocks is ’Mtigeza’s head kraal, surrounded by palisades, and the rock itself is strongly fortified, with all the approaches walled up, and for us Europeans it was by no means easy to reach the summit by means of holes through which we could hardly squeeze, and slits in the rock through which we could only pass sideways. On the top is a circular fort built of rough stones and mortar, and the boast of the people here is that the Matabele have never been able to take their stronghold. From the fort we had a good bird’s-eye view over ’Mtigeza’s realm; there are a number of encircling villages built on similar masses of rock, about half a mile or more distant. These are governed by the old man’s sons.

We sent the old chief a blanket, and he presently came to pay us a visit. According to our custom, we showed him our things, in which he did not manifest much interest until my wife produced a burning-glass, and showed off its wonderful fire-producing qualities on his skin. Then in a weak little voice the old chief [274]murmured, ‘I, ’Mtigeza, want it,’ and she promptly presented it to him, also a little salt. As we lunched he sat and watched us, but would partake of nothing we offered him, until we threw some well-picked chicken bones to our men; these he coveted and got.

’Mtigeza held an indaba or palaver of his inaunas in a shady nook before his kraal, the result of which was that a goat was to be presented to us by quite a lengthy process. First of all it was presented to Mashah, who humbly received it with hat off and head bowed, making all the necessary compliments for us. Mashah then presented it to our white [275]men, and they finally presented it to us, and it formed a valuable addition to our larder.

We were surprised to find little evidence of wealth in ’Mtigeza’s kraal. Their knives and snuff-boxes were decidedly inferior in workmanship to those we had seen elsewhere, and this we found as we travelled on to be invariably the case where the Matabele or Zulu influence has been least felt. The Zulu is the most ingenious of the Abantu races, and has imparted his ingenuity to the Makalanga, over whom he has raided and many of whom have been his slaves.

There were two as yet roofless but substantial huts being built in the kraal entirely of mud, which is a new departure for the Makalanga. The insides of these were decorated with squares of black and white, like those one sees in Bechuanaland. Undoubtedly [276]foreign influence is being felt here from its proximity to Fort Charter, and very soon the architectural features of Makalangaland will change with the rapidity that all things change in Kaffirdom. Inside the huts were big household granaries for the domestic stores, also made of mud and decorated curiously with rims, and rude paintings in white of deer, birds, and men. One represents a waggon with a span of six oxen and a man driving it. The artistic skill is, of course, of a low order, but it shows the influence of the Morunko, or white man, and how his approach has been the theme of their wonder and excited their imagination. I doubt not but those who follow after us will find attempts made to illustrate on their granaries [277]a Morunko lady with long flowing hair trotting on that strange animal, the horse.

’Mtigeza and his kraal pleased us so much that we did not leave till quite late in the afternoon. We passed through quantities of rice-fields, which spoke of prosperity; and this Makalanga rice is truly excellent, being larger, more glutinous, and of a pinker hue than our Indian rice, which to our minds tasted very insipid after it. It was almost dark when we reached Matimbi’s kraal, and pitched our tents close to the tomb of another chief. Matimbi came down to see us; he is the handsomest of all the chiefs we had yet seen, with quite a European-shaped face, long hair and long beard, both rarities in this country, and a splendid knife, carved and decorated with brass wire, which we coveted but could not obtain.

On the following day, September 2, a long ride brought us to Fort Charter and our waggons in time for our midday meal. Thoroughly did we enjoy our tables, our chairs, and our waggon-beds after nearly three weeks’ intimate acquaintance with mother earth. Until the experience of greater privations farther north came upon us, we thought we enjoyed the food, the soup, the bully beef, the bread, and the jam which our cook placed before our hungry eyes to the utmost extent that man could do.

Here we regretfully parted with our friend Mashah and most of our Makalangas; two only of enterprising mind elected to follow us and earn more blankets, and they served us with unswerving fidelity [278]till we reached the coast at Beira. Mashanani was the name of one of them, whose only fault was a too great attachment to Kaffir beer; Iguzu was the name of the other, the most industrious man I ever saw. When not working for us, he would sit on a rock for ever patching a ragged old shirt that had been presented to him, until there was little of the original fabric left, or else turning old jam tins into ornaments or threading beads. [279]