We were now once more in the country of Mangwendi, a chief of considerable power, so nearly equal to ’Mtoko, they told me, that the two neighbours, like well-matched dogs, growl but do not come to close quarters.

The noticeable characteristic of this part of the country and all the way down to Manicaland is the number of ruined fortified kraals which one comes across, culminating, as if to a central head, at Chipunza’s. These spots have been long deserted and are now overgrown with jungle. We visited one of these just after entering Mangwendi’s territories; there is something about them which recalls the Great Zimbabwe—the triple line of fortifications, the entrances slightly rounded; but then the stonework is uneven, the walls being built of shapeless stones, roughly put together with mortar. Here we see none of the even courses, the massive workmanship, and the evidences of years of toil displayed In the more ancient ruins; [337]the walls are low, narrow, and uneven. Are we to suppose an intermediate race between the inhabitants of Zimbabwe and the present race, who built these ruins? or are we to imagine them to be the work of the Makalangas themselves in the more flourishing days of the Monomatapa rule? I am decidedly myself of the latter opinion. No one who had carefully studied the Great Zimbabwe ruins could for a moment suppose them to be the work of the same people; yet they are just the sort of buildings an uncivilised race would produce, who took as their copy the gigantic ruins they found in their midst. For the next few weeks we were constantly coming across these ruins, and the study of them interested us much.

Mount Masunsgwe was a conspicuous landmark for us for several days about here. It is a massive granite kopje, placed as a sort of spur to the range of hills which surrounds ’Mtoko’s country. It is also covered with similar ruined stone walls belonging to a considerable town long since abandoned. The next day we crossed a stream near a village, called the Inyagurukwe, where the natives were busily engaged in washing the alluvial soil in search of gold. We halted for the night by another stream, under the impression that Mangwendi’s was only about four miles off, and that an easy day was in store for us. But the fates willed otherwise. Shortly after passing a large village, where the inhabitants were more than usually importunate to see my wife’s hair, screaming ‘Voudzi! voudzi!’—Hair! hair!—as they scampered [338]by our side until she gratified their curiosity, we all lost our way in an intricate maze of Kaffir paths. Our interpreter was ahead and took one way; my wife and I on horseback, in attempting to follow him, took another; Mr. Swan on foot took another; and what happened to the men with the donkeys we never knew, for they did not reach Mangwendi’s till late in the afternoon, complaining bitterly of their wanderings. We thought we were making straight for our goal, when, lo and behold! we found ourselves at the top of a hill near one of the deserted towns, tenanted only by a tribe of baboons. Our position was critical—we did not know which way to turn, when luckily we espied two little Kaffir boys, who guided us to Mangwendi’s; and, [339]worn out with our long hot ride, we made a frugal meal by the side of a stream before ascending to the kraal.

Mangwendi’s kraal is a large one, and situated curiously on the top of a lofty ridge. On turning to a Portuguese writer, Antonio Bocarro, who gives, in his thirteenth decade of his chronicle of India, an interesting account of the empire of Monomatapa, he says: ‘The ’Monomatapa are of the Mocaranga race, a free race who do not have defensive arms, nor fortresses, nor surrounded cities.’ This seems at first sight rather against the theory that the Monomatapa erected these hill fortresses, but then we must bear in mind that the Portuguese penetrated but little into these districts; and, furthermore, we found at Chipunza’s kraal, a few days’ journey off, the natives actually constructing similar walls around their chief kraal, evidently a heritage of stone building retained by them from some higher form of civilisation.

Bocarro gives us further information concerning the Monomatapa. He enumerates the chief officers of the kingdom, and amongst others he mentions ‘Manguendi’ as the chief wizard, or witch-doctor; he also mentions ‘Makoni, king of Maungo,’ as a vassal of the Monomatapa; and on inquiry at Makoni’s we learnt that his country is still called Unga, and the tribal name is Maunga, just as Mangwendi’s is called Noia and the tribe Manoia. Furthermore, he mentions one Chiburga as the majordomo of a large town where the chief’s wives were kept, probably the lofty [340]hill we visited near the Sabi.1 Thus Bocarro furnishes us with almost positive proof that the same people dwell here now as dwelt here under the rule of the Monomatapa, the only difference being that the Mocaranga race has split up into numerous branches. Over two of these Mangwendi and Makoni still exercise sway, still retaining their old dynastic names, and still inhabiting what once was the heart of the Monomatapa country. For these reasons I feel pretty confident in asserting that the series of ruined cities amongst which we had now entered is what remains to us of the once powerful chiefdom of Monomatapa.

In Mangwendi’s country, as in ’Mtoko’s, the great worship is sacrificing to ancestors, called here Bondoro, a name remarkably like the lion god Mondoro. The Bondoro are supposed to intercede for them with Muali, or God, and to get for them long life and prosperity. In Mangwendi’s country, however, it is the head of each family who performs the sacrifice, with the help of a man called Nanza, the witch-doctor, one of the chief’s family, but by no means having the same power as the Mondoro in ’Mtoko’s country. They go to the ruined town which we had accidentally visited, where probably the tribe lived in former days. Here the bullock or goat is sacrificed, everyone present is sprinkled with the blood, and they put out portions of the meat, together with some beer, for the consumption of the Bondoro, and eat the rest themselves. [341]

On the anniversary of the death of the last Mangwendi they assemble from all the country round and hold a great feast in honour of the late chief, at which the present chief conducts the sacrifice. Dos Santos, in his ‘De Asia,’ describes almost the same thing as taking place amongst the Mocarangas in his day: ‘Obsequies are made every year to defunct kings; every year, in the month of September, when the first moon appears, the king makes grand obsequies for his predecessors, who are all buried there on a high rock where he lives, called Zimbaohe.’ This hill-set village, where the people of Mangwendi now sacrifice, is still called by them their Zimbabwe. Dos Santos describes the eating, drinking, and dancing just as it might be done now.

Another curious custom to which Dos Santos also alludes is continued amongst them to-day. At Mangwendi’s, during the ploughing season, they only work for five consecutive days; they observe the sixth, and call it Muali’s day, and rest in their huts and drink beer. The chief always announces this day of rest publicly to his tribe. Dos Santos gives the following account of it: ‘There are days on which they are not to work, appointed by the king, unknown to them, when they make feasts, and they call these days Mozimos, or the days of the holy who are already dead.’ The term Mozimo for the spirits of ancestors is still used in many parts of the country, and has been compared with the term molimo, used by the Bechuana for the Supreme Being. Alvarez [342]mentions the muzimo as the god of the Monomatapa, and Gravenbroek (A.D. 1695) also states: ‘Divinitatem aliquam Messimo dictam in lucis summo cultu venerantur.’ This day of rest is observed during the ploughing season only; it may possibly be of Semite origin, but more probably has been suggested by the obvious necessity and advantage of intervening days of rest during a period of hard work.

Mangwendi’s kraal is a very fine one, quite a long climb from the spot where we were encamped. It is surrounded by palisades, and at the entrance is a tree filled with trophies of the chase, the antlers of many deer, and the skins of many wild beasts, which present quite an imposing appearance. The chief was seated on a rock outside, chatting with his indunas, when we arrived. He took us into the village and had beer fetched for our delectation. He is an extremely courteous, gentlemanly man, and seems most friendly to the white men who come in his way; and as his kraal is not very far from the new road into Manicaland, and as this district is very populous, he is constantly visited by traders and others.

Mangwendi has ten wives, and two young girls, whom he has bought but not yet married, and his family consists of ten sons and ten daughters, one of whom, a bright-looking girl of about fifteen, came down to our camp to sell us meal and beer. Unfortunately we could get little else, for the traders had bought up all the available provisions, and from this point until we reached Umtali we suffered more from [343]starvation than during any part of our journeyings in Mashonaland. ’Mtoko’s bullock was done; we could get no meat at any of the kraals, or game along our road; our coffee, sugar, and jams were all done, and our meals, with rare exceptions, reduced themselves to millet-meal porridge, rice, and tea, none of which were very palatable without the ingredients of milk and sugar; and the provoking thing about Kaffir meal is that it will not bind to make bread, so that for the staff of life cold rice made into a shape was our only substitute. We generally kept our pockets full of the ground-nuts (arachis), commonly called ‘monkey-nuts,’ which are excellent when roasted in the embers, and capital assistants in warding off hunger.

On leaving Mangwendi’s we had regretfully to part with our bearers, who had accompanied us all the way from Kunzi’s, and engage fresh ones in their place. One of these, to our surprise, chose to take his wife with him, but as she had to carry her baby on her back and food for herself and her husband, she, poor thing, was so done up after our first day’s march of seventeen miles, that her husband sent her back again.

Our first camp after leaving Mangwendi’s was at a very interesting spot—an isolated granite kopje called Nyanger, rising about two hundred feet above the surrounding plain. It was entirely covered with old walls, irregular in shape, and similar to those above mentioned, and evidently in former years a place of great strength. It had been long abandoned, for [344]there were no signs of habitation thereon, and the approaches were full of débris. To the north-east of this kopje is a very curious grotto, or domed cave, entirely covered with Bushman drawings. A kudu and a buffalo are excellently drawn, almost worthy of a Landseer, and in their drawings one can distinctly trace three different periods of execution: (1) Crude and now faint representations of unknown forms of animal life. (2) Deeper in colour, and admirably executed, partly on the top of the latter, are the animals of the best period of this art in red and yellow. (3) Inartistic representations of human beings, which evidently belong to a period of decadence in the execution of this work.

The colours are invariably red, yellow, and black. I am told that the two former are obtained from certain coprolites found in these parts, which, when broken open, have a yellow dust inside.

In this curiously decorated cave we found also many graves formed by plastering up holes in the rock with a hard kind of cement. We opened one of them, and found that the corpse had been wrapped in skins and placed here. In the centre of the cave is a large semicircular wall, entered in the middle by a rounded entrance; behind this is a sort of palisade of grass matting placed against poles, to protect it from the wind, and behind this are similar cement-covered graves. Now the present race do not bury in this way, but evidently come here at certain times to keep the place in order, and doubtless venerate the [345]spot as the resting-place of remote ancestors. There are also several other graves on the flat space around Nyanger rock, piles of stones placed around a crescent-shaped wall, which is evidently a sort of rudimentary temple in which the sacrifices take place.

On our march that day we passed several of these cemeteries in the open veldt far from any trace of habitation. They are generally placed on slightly rising ground, and always have the semicircular structure, which reminded us of the stones placed at the village of Lutzi, where the inhabitants collected to smoke and talk, protected from the wind. These spots are evidently still venerated, and form another of the many problems connected with the past in this district of Africa. I think they are the [346]places to which Dos Santos alludes in the following paragraph, where he refers to the chiefs who ‘make grand obsequies to their predecessors, who are all buried there.’ In a memoir written by Signor Farao, governor of Senna in 1820, there is a curious testimony to this theory. He writes: ‘The mountains of Magonio (Makoni?), in Quiteve, were noted as the burial-places of the kings and queens of Quiteve, Gembe and Dombo. The remains were carried in procession to the caves, where they were deposited alongside the bones of former kings, and some of the most esteemed women of the deceased, or his secretary, and some of the great people, were sacrificed at the ceremony.’

Most of the granite kopjes in this district have been similarly fortified to Nyanger rock. Time would not permit of our visiting many of them, but I am certain that a careful investigation of this district would produce many valuable additions to the already large collections of Bushman drawings. The fortifications of these rocks are generally in rows of walls in terraces with narrow rounded entrances; they are all constructed in a rough manner, with irregular-shaped stones joined together with cement.

Near the river Chimbi, which we crossed shortly before reaching Chipunza’s kraal, there is a particularly interesting specimen of this class of ruin. The rocky kopje is fortified with walls, all the nooks and crannies being carefully walled up, and below this is a curious half-underground passage which evidently connected the fortress with its water supply; it has [347]a wall on either side of it—one four feet thick, and the other eight feet thick; and the passage is roofed over with large slabs of stone, some four and some five feet long. This passage can now be traced for about fifty feet; it is nearly choked up with rubbish, but the object for which it was originally constructed is obvious, as it leads down to low swampy ground, where water could be obtained.

A mile or two beyond this we alighted for a short time at a pretty village called Makonyora, which had been surrounded by a palisade which had taken root and grown into shady trees of considerable size. The inhabitants seemed numerous and well to do. In this village there are many instances of walls constructed like those we had seen in the ruined villages; the foundations for the huts and granaries also are of stone, so that the air may pass underneath, forming neatly executed stone circles. The various gullies between the rocks are carefully walled up, and you pass from one collection of huts to the other through low entrances in these walls. There is no doubt about it, that these people here possess an inherited knowledge of stone building which exists nowhere else in Kaffirland, unless it be amongst the Basutos, who, I am told, are skilled in stone building, and who, at a not very remote period, are believed to have migrated from this very country. It seems to me hardly possible that the gigantic buildings of Zimbabwe and places in this country can have existed in their midst without the inhabitants making some attempt to [348]copy them; and here we have an imitation, though a poor one, in the heart of what was the strongest chiefdom of the country.

The aspect of the country is here very curious, the high level plateau (it is about 5,000 feet above sea level) is, as it were, closely sown for miles around with rugged granite kopjes, some only fifty feet high, whilst others reach an elevation of several hundred feet. They are very evenly arranged, too, as if they were the pieces for a cyclopean game of chess. Through this region we passed, and at the eastern end of it we reached our destination, Chipunza’s kraal, where we proposed to halt for a day or two. Chipunza’s is a very large village, built on a gentle rise on the right bank of the Rusapi River, with huts packed away into all sorts of snug corners amongst the rocks. Immediately below these, and within easy reach of the river, we pitched our tents. It was a great disappointment to us to be able to get no meat here. Our meals, which were composed entirely of things farinaceous, were growing exceedingly monotonous, and we almost hated the sight of the porridge-pot, which turned up with unvarying regularity. As against this, the air at Chipunza’s was the finest I have ever breathed, exhilarating like draughts of champagne.

When we reached the village we found the ladies of Chipunza with their bark blankets tied tight around them, for it was chilly, seated in picturesque and strange groups amongst the rocks, busily engaged in a still stranger occupation. They were burning little [351]heaps of cowdung, and then spreading the results on the rocks to cool. Not understanding what they were about we approached them, when, to our surprise, an old crone picked up a lump of this delectable material, put it into her mouth and consumed it with evident satisfaction, muttering, as she saw our unfeigned surprise, ‘Salt, salt; good, good!’ and then we realised that here they use the extract of nitre from the ash as their substitute for salt, the commodity of life for which they have the greatest craving, but which it is hardest to obtain.

In the afternoon we went to pay a visit to the chief, who received us in a sort of inner fortress surrounded by a wall, through an opening in which, about three feet high, and covered with large slabs of stone, we had to creep. He is a grey-haired, refined-looking man, with manners very like, and not the least inferior to, an Arab sheikh. He sat surrounded by his councillors, and we all set to work to clap hands vigorously. By this time my wife had learnt to clap hands in the female fashion, namely, crosswise, whereas previously she had disgraced herself by clapping like a man, with the fingers straight upon one another; but, of course, the intricacies of savage etiquette can only be acquired by practice.

After a little conversation had passed between us, a woman, one of the chief’s wives, made her appearance, bending her body humbly, and carrying a large pot full of wa-wa, as they term beer in this part of the country. This she presented to her lord and master [352]on bended knee, after having previously drunk a little herself, to convince us that there was no poison in it; then the chief took a drink, then his councillors, and finally it was handed to us. We found it was lovely beer, very potent, and after our long abstinence from anything so intoxicating, as exhilarating as the air.

We were much struck by the courteous manners of the natives here. One man, on receiving a present, bowed low and scraped the ground with his feet. There is something about these people which points distinctly to a higher form of civilisation having existed amongst them at a former time; and when one reads Dos Santos’s account of the Mocarangas of Monomatapa of his day, one cannot help feeling that they are the remnant of that higher civilisation about which the early Portuguese travellers tell us so much.

‘The Portuguese,’ says Dos Santos, ‘did not enter the king’s presence, like the Kaffirs, with deep obeisance, only with bare feet;’ and in a curious old treaty published in the Portuguese Yellow-book, and purporting to have been made between the Monomatapa chief Manuza and Manuel Gomes Serrao in 1629, the following stipulation is inserted:—

‘The ambassadors who shall come to speak with him shall enter his Zimbahe covered and shod (with boots on their feet) and with their arms at their sides, as if they were before the King of Portugal. He shall give them chairs upon which to sit, and they shall not be submitted to the ceremony of the clapping of hands.’ [353]

Chipunza has another name, Chipadzi. The exact relation between these two names we were unable to ascertain; Chipadzi, however, I believe to be the old dynastic name of the chief. His Zimbabwe, or place of sacrifice, is about a mile from the present village, at a spot called Chittakette, or the Chipadzi’s old town. To this place we were to be taken on the morrow. We found it an interesting old spot, buried in trees and with tomatoes and tobacco plants all amongst the ruined walls. It evidently had had a wooden palisade around it, which had sprouted and produced the venerable trees, and it had an inner fortress with walls encircling it, and low gateways through, with large stone slabs over them. It is an excellent specimen of this rough style of fortress: the walls are from six to eight feet thick, with loopholes out of which to shoot, built with no attempt at keeping even courses, and with mortar. Within the fortress are the remains of huts and granaries, as if the place had not been abandoned for very many years.

Just outside is Chipadzi’s tomb, with a tall stone erected over it, and the surrounding ground is covered with tombs. This spot is called the Zimbabwe by the natives, where they sacrifice annually to the Maklosi of their ancestors.

We spent two days wandering amongst the granite locks around Chipunza’s kraal, and we found evidence of a vast population having lived here at some period. Nearly every one of the granite kopjes is fortified with walls, and on some of them we found [354]graves of cement similar to those we saw at Nyanger rock; and on the hill just behind Chipunza’s kraal a tall stone is erected on a pile of stones, the object of which nobody seemed inclined to tell us.

How long ago it is since these walled towns were inhabited, and who inhabited them, is, of course, a mystery. There is, however, no evidence of any great antiquity about them; the mortar may have stood for a few centuries, but not more; and from the evidence given us by the Portuguese, above quoted, from the continuity of certain names and many customs, and from the fact that the present inhabitants still retain a certain knowledge of stone building, I think it is a very reasonable assumption that this was one of the great centres of the so-called Monomatapa Empire.

After leaving Chipunza’s kraal, and crossing the River Rusapi, a ride of two hours brought us to Makoni’s kraal. Makoni, chief of the Maunga tribe, is still one of the most powerful potentates in this district. He, too, calls his town Zimbabwe, and it is doubtless the same spot occupied by Makoni, chief of the Maungo, one of the great vassals of the Monomatapa that Antonio Bocarro tells us about three centuries ago.

It is probably the highest inhabited spot in Mashonaland, being 5,200 feet above the level of the sea, just at the edge of the high plateau, where it breaks into the serrated ridges of Manicaland. The town covers a very large area of ground, being a [355]conglomerate mass of huts and granaries surrounded by a palisade. We spent about an hour resting there at a sort of public meeting-place surrounded by a wall, where the inhabitants collected in crowds to stare at us. Most of the men had very large holes pierced in the lobes of their ears, into which they would insert snuff-boxes of reeds, decorated with black geometric patterns, and other articles. The women are all girt with the same bark-fibre garments which we had seen worn in ’Mtoko’s country. Accompanied by a swarthy rabble, we climbed a rock behind the town, from which we got an exquisite view down into the valleys of Manica, bearing eastwards—a view of rugged mountains tumbled together, of deep valleys and running streams—a view such as one would get when descending from the Alps into the plain of Italy. Chief Makoni never came to see us, and as our time was limited we had to hurry away without making his acquaintance.

Almost immediately on leaving Makoni’s our road began to descend, and we entered upon a series of richly wooded gorges, flanked by gigantic granite cliffs. On one of these pinnacles, about the height of Makoni’s own kraal, is perched Chigono’s village, occupying a most wonderful position. How they ever manage to drag up here a sufficiency of water and the necessaries of life is a marvel. One thing they have in perfection is climate. We found it hot and stuffy in the valleys, but in their mountain eyries the Kaffirs enjoy the most perfect air that it is possible to breathe. [356]

On the third day after leaving Chipunza’s, one of our men had the good luck to shoot an antelope, an event which was hailed with delight by all in our camp. We had never in our lives been so long without meat, and the want of it was beginning to be felt by all. On the fourth day we crossed the Odzi River, the boundary between Mashonaland and Manicaland. It is a fine stream even here, with a good body of water even at the end of the dry season, on its way to join the Sabi River, just where we touched it a few weeks before. At the point where we crossed the Odzi the stream was sixty feet across, and the bed is at least one hundred yards wide, and when the rains are on it must be a terrible obstacle. Even as it was we had to unload the donkeys and carry their burdens across, which means, when the afternoon is advancing, a halt for the night.

A ride of twelve miles brought us next day to the kraal of ’Mtasa, the most powerful of all the Manica chiefs. He is the paramount lord of the Nica tribe, which gives its name to the country, and dwells in the heart of the most mountainous district we had as yet traversed. A mass of mountains, known to the natives as Mount Yenya, occupies the heart of his country. ’Mtasa’s kraal itself is over 4,000 feet above the sea level, and above this the rocky mountains tower 2,000 feet at least. Here, though not actually as high as Makoni’s, you feel much higher, looking down into the deep valleys below, and seeing no high plateau behind you. Amongst these mountains [357]lie numerous scattered kraals, excellent grazing-ground for cattle, and from marauding neighbours ’Mtasa is free. Nevertheless, during the last two years poor ’Mtasa has had rather a bad time of it, being the bone of contention between the Portuguese and English chartered companies. Early in 1891, in the very centre of this kraal, a small English contingent captured Andrade, Gouveia, and the representatives of the Mozambique Company, and now the British flag floats over it.

’Mtasa’s kraal is quite one of the most extraordinary ones we had yet visited, being a nest of separate villages, each surrounded by its own stockade, hidden away amongst granite boulders beneath the shade of a lofty mountain. It is almost impossible to form any idea of the exact extent of this place, so hidden away is it amongst trees and rocks, and so intricate are its approaches; but, if report tells truly, which it does not always do in South Africa, it is one of the largest native centres in the country. We wandered up to a village the first afternoon, a considerable climb from our camp. Little groups of natives sat chattering under the shade of open huts, or just roofs on piles, the rudimentary form of the café or the club: there were pigeon-cotes on piles in all directions, and at every turn we found ourselves blocked by palisades, which caused us to retrace our steps; so, as we intended to stay another day here, we contented ourselves with gazing at the magnificent view, the peaked heights of the Yenya range, the [358]deep wooded valley below with its dashing stream, and far away in the horizon the distant blue Manica mountains. Certainly no kraal we had as yet visited enjoys such excellent views as ’Mtasa’s. The huts here are large and roomy, at the side they have two tall decorated posts to support shelves for their domestic produce; most of them have two doors, and with the dense shade of many trees above them they are exceedingly picturesque.

On our second visit to the kraals we met ’Mtasa’s son, who regretted that his aged father was ill just then, and had gone away for change of air. We took leave of him, and climbed up through rocks and through palisade after palisade, shutting off the various kraals from one another; one of these we entered by a curious gateway made by swinging beams, and penetrated into the headquarters of the old chief. By this time we noticed that the people began to glare at us unpleasantly and audibly to grumble. Seated in rows on the rocks, they chattered to us like angry monkeys, but we went on without heeding them. One man, with a bayonet fixed on to his rifle, followed unpleasantly close behind us; and then, as we were about to penetrate into what I suppose formed [359]their innermost recesses, ’Mtasa’s son, who, by the way, had had more beer than was good for him, came up to us in hot haste, and peremptorily commanded us to depart. Again he reiterated the statement that his father was away, and during his absence none could see the royal kraal; so, somewhat crestfallen, we turned back again and saw no more. Afterwards we were informed that the old ’Mtasa was there all the time, but, as he had suffered so much lately from the conflicting interests of England and Portugal, he thought it best not to see us, for fear we might make him sign some new treaty against his will.

Of all the natives we had met during our wanderings, those of ’Mtasa’s pleased us least; they appeared to us to be completely wanting in all delicacy of feeling, and had to be driven by force from our tents. They seemed to us to be an ill-bred, impudent race, and though their home was so lovely we left it without regret. Somehow, too, our visit to ’Mtasa’s kraal was altogether unsatisfactory; we left it with the consciousness that there were mysteries in it which we had not yet explored. At the very last moment, just as we were packing up our things, I chanced to see on a rock close by our camp some more of the Bushman drawings, grotesque figures of men with bows and arrows and deer grazing, in the usual colours of red and yellow. I feel confident that in the massive mountain behind the kraal some more fortunate travellers will find objects of interest which [360]will well repay investigation. We have distinctly unpleasant recollections of the place, as we have also of a certain dangerous slippery drift or ford across the River Odzani, which we found about half way between ’Mtasa’s and the B.S.A. camp at Umtali. We had to take off our shoes and stockings and lead our horses across the slippery rocks; they, poor things, slipped at every step and trembled with fright. As for our donkeys, they subsided altogether, and had to be unloaded and almost carried across. [361]