Ith Rhodes In - Forgotten Books

(By permisswn ofMessrs Ellwtt é : Fry.

THE RIGHT HON. CECIL J RHODES

I TH R H O DE S IN

MASHONALAND .

D. C. DE WAAL,M.L.A .

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DUTCH BY

JAN H. HOFMEYR DE WAAL.

IN TWO PARTS .

J. C . JUTA CO. ,

CAPE TOWN. PORT ELIZABETH.

JOHANNESBURG .

AND

BASINGHALL STREET,LONDON, E C .

1 896 .

Entered a t Statwners’ Ha ll .] [All rights 1 ese1'

ved .

LONDON

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARIXG cnoss

P REFA CE.

THE contents of this book appeared a few years

ago as a series of articles in the Zuz'

d Afrikaansche

s dschm'

ft , a Dutch m onthly magazine published in

Cape Town. As Charterland_

or Rhodesia (as it has

recently been nam ed) was then, so to speak, a new

born babe to wh i ch the political eye of South Africa

was turning with keen interest,the description of our

travels was eagerly and appreciatively read .

The readerwi ll find the account to consist of facts

written in plain words . I have neither indulged in

florid language, nor do I make any claim to correct

l iterary style. When I penned the contents of this

volume,I did not in the least contemplate their being

printed in English . Shortly after their publication

in their original form ,I was asked by numbers of my

English friends to hav e them translated and published

in book form . To this request I have at last yielded ,and I trust the book will please them and all others

who care to know som ething about the nature and

history ofMashonaland— the future Eldorado .

PREFACE.

The second part of the book, which contains an

account of our second trip to the interior, wi l l, I

believe,be generally accepted as the m ore interesting

of the two,so I hope the readerwil l not lay aside and

criticise the book unti l he has perused the whole of i t.

If worthy of being read, the following pages should

be of interest not only to South Africans , but t o the

English public generally, as Rhodesia i s certain in

the near future to becom e one of the forem ost de

pendencies of Great Britain.

In conclusion I may point out that Mr. Rhodes

Sir H . B . Loch , Mr. Siv ewright , Captain Bower, and

Dr. Jameson, as m entioned in this book, are now

respectively the Right Hon. Cecil J . Rhodes, Lord

Loch, Sir Jam es Siv ewright , Sir Graham Bower, andDr. Jam eson

, C .B.

DAVID C . DE WAAL.

CAPE Town,

December, 1895 .

C ONTENTS .

PART I.

OUR FIRST TRIP .

CHAPTER I.

PAGEWe set out—My travel ling companions—Met by Mankoraan

-The chief’s com plaints—Sir Henry’s present s are

rejected—Vrijburg—We witness a Kafir wedding at

Mafeking—A visit to Montsioa

CHAPTER II.

Having parted from the Governor and his company, we start—Ourwaggons and their attendant s—We spend our firstnight With an old hunter, and he and his household enlighten us as to Lobengula and his country Nel

mapius is best left alone—W illow Park

CHAPTER III.

Buispoort—Travellers’ tales not all gospel—We outspan at

a German missionary’s—More harrowing detail s aboutthe chief of the Matabele—A literal dance of deathWe have ourfirst m isadventure—Kafir beer bet ter thanNelmapius

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

PAGEThe bank s of the Limpopo—Mr. Rhodes a good shot—Mr.

Venter fails to im itate a lion—An unsuccessful wildduck hunt—Arrive at Palla’s Cam p, and again m eet the

Governor

CHAPTER V.

Hunting in clay—A visit to a Transvaal shopkeeper, and a

look at a b oa cons trictor—HowGrob belaarm et his death—Major Sapte

’

s compass not so useful as horses’ hoofsI receive very sad news from home—Pietje upsets Mr.

Venter

CHAPTER VI.

arrive at Sofala—Journeying through a kloof—Toolarge a com pany has it s drawbacks—Mr. Rhodes showsthe strength of his resolution, and gets drenched—Themeeting with Khama—The chief

’s differences with the

farm ei s—Khama’s wife—Reflections on the country

CHAPTER VII.

Leave Tjopong— \Ve outspan, and I go a-fishing—A man

saved from drowning—A talk with SirHenry Loch

CHAPTER VIII.

adventure with a lion—The weather not what we ex

pected—Mr. Rhodes reminds m e of my grandfather

Sunday in the camp—SirHenry goes out hunting, andMr. Venter and I spend the morning tree measuringW e lose ourway, and meet some game which we fail tosecure—The Premier the best sportsman

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX .

The place of death —Macloutsi—Though man proposes,God disposes—A review ofthe Bi itish Bechuana policeTelegraph facilit ies—A separat ion which Sir HenryLoch disapproves—Mr. Rhodes wishes to seeMashonaland, and we go forward

CHAPTER X .

A dark night and a recalcitrant driver—W e find we havean invalid in the company—We go on and pass througha country deserted through fear ofLobengula—A let terofwarning from the Governor

CHAPTER XI.

We arrive at the Tuli River—Other tourist s there besidesourselves—Our ideas considered impracticable—Mr.

Rhodes gives up his project with regret—The story of

a brave lion-hunter

CHAPTER XII.

A bad night—Solomon fears he is going to die—Traces ofhyaenas and snakes—We come to an African ParadiseMr. Venter and I go in search of m ilk, and are nearlytorn to pieces —We cross the Crocodile, and have an

interv iew with Mr. GreeiI—A proposed b ig hunt

CHAPTER XIII.

We divide our forces—The prospect of a delicious supperI meet with some CUI

'

IOUS WIld animals—An interviewwith crocodiles The return of our hunters—An ad

venture with a tiger—Mr. Greeff tells an exciting story .

Xi

PAGE

CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. v an Aarde’s farm—Too tired to run after koodoos—Adifference about our journey, andMr. Lange has to giveway—Crematart River and the trees there

CHAPTER XV.

Fascinating scenery—The River Nile, so called—We makeanother effort to b uy milk—The Kafirwomen as bad as

the dogs—A delusive hill—The Premier is dissatisfied ,but the oxen are not—A born hunter and his fam ilySalt-waggons from Zoutpansbergen

CHAPTER XVI.

A carriage and four horses—Mr. Barcud Vorster—Mr. Adendorff and his concession—A tiresome invitat ion which

has to be accepted—We reach P ietersburg, and read sa d

t idings in the newspapers—We do not enjoy our

quarters, and decide to leave—Expensive hospitalityWe hearmore than we desire of the concession

CHAPTER XVII.

The concession again—A sumptuous lunch—Makapaan

’s

Poort—The cave of the Kafirs—A fearfu l death—We

reach Potgieter’

s Rust—Kafirs on the way to the goldfields—The advantages ofKafir labour

CHAPTER XVIII.

No hurry to reach Pretoria—An officer meets us with an in

v itation—\Ve enter in procession, and sleep, after twomonth s’ travel ling

, under a roof—Nelmapius gives me

a headache in Pretoria—The gold mines of Johannesburg—I am treated discourteously by a post-office clerkat K lmberley

—Home at Capetown once more

PAGE

CONTENTS.

PART II.

OUR SECOND TRIP .

CHAPTER I.

Introduct ion—W e leave Capetown for Port Eliz abeth—ThePremier shuns a public demonstration—The mosquitoin Durban—On board ship—Beet les as company—Mr.Rhodes does not m ind them , but I do, and crack mycrown in consequence

CHAPTER II.

Stil l in the Norseman—W e arr1v e at Delagoa Bay—The

character of the Portuguese residents—Why DelagoaBay is unhealthy—Back to our berths—Beet les preferable to dirt —The manoeuvres of our pilot—An awkwardpredicam ent—At Inhambane—W e hire Kafir boys

, but

the Governor disapproves—The Prem ierwaxes wrathfuland gains his point

CHAPTER III.

We depart from Inhambane—The pilot proves an um

successful acrobat—We reach Beira Bay—In trouble

once more about ourKafirs—Captain Pipon to the rweneThe Governor outwit ted

CHAPTER IV.

Our first sigh t of hippopotami—Nat ive canoes—A lovelynigh t—We row to the shore and have a water-buck

hunt—MajorJohnson the man of the day—W e reach

Naves Ferreira—Notes on the Portuguese inhabitantsand the native Kafirs

xiii

PAGE

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER V.

Unloading under difficulties—Pik enin as tonishes us with an

acrobatic feat CrocodileNest ”—SupperatMapandas

A novel way of destroying rat s—Ofi'

again and meet

some game on the way—Outspan at Muda—Our nigh t’s

rest disturbed by lions

CHAPTER VI.

Vexatious trouble with the horses—Bufi'

aloes—A naturalzoological garden—A dash in a crocodile pool—Lionsdangerously close—Rest at last—Mr. Rhodes shoots a

zebra—A wild rush—The Premier chased by a “ lion

CHAPTER VII.

Sarmento—The apes watch us bathing—W e have to abandonone of our carts—Packing and unpacking—l Diflicul ties

grow and I am attacked with despondency—W e resolveto give up our second cart also—A lion kills one of our

horses—Beautiful palm s , bu t bad water

CHAPTER VIII.

A dreary search for water—Anxious hours in the dark—Ahappy meeting

—The Major chal lenges m e to a rashplunge—We meet Bowden

,who appears ill—I lose my

dearly-loved pony

CHAPTER IX.

Annoyance at the hands of our boys—We pass a PortugueseLema ; he travels in state—How the nat ives salute one

another—Traces of the tset se-fiy—No pleasure in a

bamboo forest —I lose some of my baggage—Chimoyo at

las t

PAGE

159

CONTENTS. XV

CHAPTER X .

PAGEBartering with Kafirs

—Our fol lowers begin to feel fatigued—I s tick to my portmanteau in spite of Mr. Rhodes ’

generous offers—Major Johnson is charged by a wild ox—How a Kafir smokes—A lovely hal ting-spot

CHAPTER XI.

An historical show—The scene ofa batt le—Massi-Kessi—Onthe track of the ancient gold-seekers—We plan to sleepoutside the tent , b ut are discovered by our Premier

Some thrilling lion stories

CHAPTER XII.

We cross the Um tali Mountains—A good night’s rest—Our

Kafir boys leave us,b u t Pik enin and Matokwa choose

to s tick by their present m as ters—An accident to

Pikenin—I am thrown into a pool—Our boys frightenthe Kafirwomen—A Kafir burial-place

CHAPTER X III.

Beautiful farrn sites—Eccentricities of Kafir hair-dressingWe take shel ter from the storm—Left without food—MajorJohnson loses his bet

CHAPTER XIV.

Marandella’s kraal—A touch of fever—More thunderstorm s—We enter Salisbury, and I inspect the stores awaitingme there—Misfortunes and losses—Cap tain Tyson moregenerous than is needful—My tent-mate

xv i CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XV.

PAGESalisbury—A visit to the auction sales—The Premier hasdissatisfied deputations to deal with—Many ofi cers butno privates worth of champagne at a sittingUnpleasant visitors—King Solomon

’s mines

CHAPTER XVI.

Lord Randolph Churchill—An ancient gold-seeker—Politicaldiscussions—I grow warm

,and give the English ex

Chancellor my views without fear or favour—The BlueRock Reef—Dr. Jameson and I inspect an old mine

Lord Randolph shows he can cook

CHAPTER XVII.

The Rothschild Mines—Output of gold —How Lobengulatreated his advisers—Traces of the Phoenicians—Lemontrees—Crossing the Bunjani River—Hunt ing the Setsiebies bucks—I prefer to shoot nothing to being shot—We

have to return empty-handed

CHAPTER XVIII.

Hunting again—The Premier Nimrod this t ime—Adventure

with a crocodile—e . Scot t’s narrative—Our oxen

missing, andwe are all out ofhumour—A tropical storm 246

CHAPTER XIX.

The Umfuli River—Ant-heaps a thousand years old—Theclimate of Mashonaland—The Mak alaka Kafirs—Ameeting in the wilds with friends—Young colonist sCaptain Tyson’s stores are replenished—We receive a

vis i t from Mr. Selous and travel on the road b e con

s tructed—More lion stories

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xv ii i CONTEN as.

CHAPTER XXIV.

PAGEreturn to our travel s—The thriving condition of the

Simbabe Kafirs—Their pret ty children—"he litt le onessuspicious of the meat-t ins—One ofour animals taken ill—A visit to Dickens’ Gold Reef—Stam ping t he quartzDr. Jameson displays his horsemanship and com es toG riefh

CHAPTER XXV.

A new team—Mr. Lange, Captain Tyson and I are team stersA mad rush down hill—A bathe in the Crocodile’s

pool—Provident ial Pass ; in the haunts of the goldseekers—Long

’s Reef—Mv. Long can give reasons for hisactions Lord Randolph much in error

CHAPTER XXVI.

Again on the march—An accident to my portmanteau—Iam sad in consequence—A hard alternative beforeRoeprng and January

—We interview Chibe to learn thetruth about the Adendortf Concession—An uph il l climb—Chibe does not confirm the Concess ion—We learnmore

details about Lobengula—My new boy

CHAPTER XXVII.

(e ptain Tyson’s dip—How Mr. Vluggi lost his way—A grim

game—A m eet ing with some disappointed diggersThe scene of young Hackwell

’

s death—A hunt beforebreakfast , in which we see traces of much game, b ut

shoot none—I shoot anal ligator—CaptainTyson proposesa race—I accept the challenge and come off victorious

CONTENTS. xix

CHAPTER XXVIII.PAGE

Secluded hut s—Evidence of a struggle between animals—Aview of a huge crocodile—Captain Tyson deceived—Hehas a nasty fal l—At the Bochi River—A needed bathThe snake hunt s the cayman and the boys hunt thesnake—Van Riet’s wonderful adventure

CHAPTER XXIX .

A koodoo shot—Mr. Rhodes’ l igh t waggon—I over-persuademy companions, and we all start together forBechuanaland—Prkenrn leaves me—On the track of our previousjourney—An invitation at Macloutsi in which I am not

included

CHAPTER XXX .

We leaveMacloutsi—Meet Khama—At Palapye—The chief’s

grievances—I do not enjoy the role of John Gilpin, andreproach my companions

- A lit t le excusable exaggera

t ion in my complaint s—Captain Tyson and Mr. Lange

left behind—Matabele boys—Arrival at Notwani

CHAPTER XXXI.

Plenty of room in the coach—Lord Randolph and the mules—My anxiety not to disturb his lordship’s rest—A rapidrun to Mafeking— The troubles of fame—Mr. Rhodesmakes a speech at Fourteen Streams—At Kimberley

WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

We set out—My travelling companions—Met by MankoraanThe chief

’ s complaints—Sir Henry’s present s are rejectedVrrjburg—We witness a Kati rwedding at Mafeking—A v isitto Montsioa .

ON the 2ud of October, 1890, the Hon. C . J. Rhodes,M.L .A Mr. M . M . Venter, and myself— incompany with the Governor of the Cape Colony

, Sir

Henry Loch , and his party— left Kimberley by specialtrain for the north at half-past eight in the m orning, and arrived at Taungs, Mankoraan

’

s chief town,

at one.

There we pitched a large tent and had our lunchunder it. Shortly afterwards, Mankoraan and eighteenof his indunas, with a retinue of a thousand m en on

horseback, made their appearance at our camp . Theycam e to welcome the Governor, and to confer with himon certain matters regarding their land . The scene of

B

2 WITH RHODES IN MASIIONALANI) .

their approach was an imposing one, and the sub se

q uent interview very interesting. Mankoraan, who,upon the invitation of the High Comm issioner, was thefirst to speak

,started at once complaining in bitter

term s that sufficient land had not been left to him and

his people, and said that, if better provision were not

made for them,they would starve

,etc., etc . The

Governor then pointed ou t to him that, according tothe last census returns, not only had his property aswel l as the number of his people during recent yearsvastly increased, but his kingdom had never beforebeen in so prosperous a condition

,and that

,had the

English Queen no t taken him and his tribe under herprotection, they would very probably by that tim e

have been expelled from the land by the strongernegro tribes

,as had been the case wi th Massouw.

Mank oraan shook his head . No, grum bled he,

the Queen has not protected us,but has deprived

us of our land and handed much of it over to the

Trans vaal .But ,

”asked SirHenry, what is it that you want

Do you want us to retake the land already grantedt o the Transvaal , and so plunge into war with tha tcountry ?

”

“ Well,I can’t help it if that follows

,he replied

,

but I must have m ore land .

“ If you had fal len under the protection of the

Transvaal , would you have been better off than youare the Governor asked .

Certainly,”was the answer ; I would have been

treated far better.

”

The Governor now was silent for a while. Indig

MANKORAAN IS STUBB ORN. 3

nation at the ingratitude of the negro chief was to beread upon his countenance.

At length he replied,“ I shall m ention your

complaints to Sir Sidney Shippard (the Administrator of Bechuanaland),

“and see what he can do

for you.

”

He then turned to the counsellors of the black rulerand told them that if they had anything to ask or

state he would lend a wi ll ing ear. The brother of

Mank oraan thereupon took up the word and grumbledlike the latter too litt le ground ! too little grass !This was indeed the gist also of all the succeedingspeeches.The royal deputation having exhausted their com

plaints, the High Comm issioner, to prevent i f possiblethe existence of any i ll-feeling, offered to make Man

koraan a sm al l present— giving him his choice ofei ther a horse , a saddle and bridle, a watch and chain,a telescope or a rifle .

“ No,thanks,

” said Mankoraan, shaking his head ;I shal l take nothing for nothing. If I want anythingI’ll pay for it, for if I accept your present you willonly deprive m e ofmore land .

”

“ I think Mankoraan has m istaken me,said Sir

Henry to the interpreter, so as to clear away anypossible m isunderstanding .

“ I m ean to give him a

present, not to change with him .

“ Oh,I understood the Governor wel l enough

,

replied the chief,“ but I repeat I wil l have nothing

from him for nothing.

”

At this the High Comm issioner changed colour.Tell the chief,

” he said,that Her Majesty ’s

B 2

4 WITH RHODES IN JIIASHONALAND.

High Comm issioner giv es, but does not take, and tel lhim that because of his uncourteous reply he shal l

get nothing— and now you may all go,

” concludedHis Excellency .

His black majesty thereupon rose with his odoriferousadvisers

,shook Sir Henry’s hand and those of some

others, and left the tent . They m ounted their horses,

and off they went, horses and riders,in a cloud of dust .

Upon the departure of those honourable visitors andtheir followers, we had to decide between two thingsto sprinkle the tent with eau-de-Cologne in order torem ove the odour the Kafirs had left behind

, or to hauldown the tent altogether and proceed on our j ourney.

We chose the latter course .Naturally, our topic for the next hour or so was the

attitude ofMankoraan. Our Prem ier was of opinionthat the sooner the people of Mank oraan be com

pelled to work for the farmers instead of being allowedto cluster together in thousands and do nothing

, the

sooner theywould learn to theiradvantage that it was theduty of every m an

, be he black or white,to earn his

bread by toil—and shepherds and labourers were justthen what farmers were most in need of. I

,too

,felt

—and Mr. Venter shared the feeling with me—thatthere existed far too much ungratefulness and im

politeness in Mank oraan and his m en towards theirbenefactors . They should b e forced t o do labourunderthe farmers . The sooner Bechuanaland is annexed tothe Cape the better, not only for those lazy lords personally, and the country in wh ich they live, bu t for thegeneral civilisation and prosperity of t he land .

The veld and ca ttle there appeared in excellent

6 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND .

We drove offto the little town,and there numbers

offlags were waving in honour of the visiting part v .

Hav ing l istened to the addresses read to the Governor— a lot of ceremonial nonsense— each hurried to hisboarding-house to take , what the dusty way had causedhim sorely to need—a good bath . Mr. Venter and

m yself put Up at Advocate Allen Fraser’s,

* who,

togetherwith his gracious wife, treated us exceedinglywell .At evening we took a stroll through the vil lage and

were surprised at seeing such fine strong bu ildings,such big hotel s and comm ercial houses, and so neat atownhouse. The following m orning we went to see theprison

, a building ornam ental to the place and certainlyone of the finest of its kind in South Africa. To theprincipal springs of Vrijburg we also paid a visit, andt hey too exc ited our adm iration. At a smal l expensethe town m ight be very abundantly provided withwater. The soil there is fertile almost anything wouldgrow and thrive in it. Indeed, I think that Vrijburg i sbound in the near future to become an im portant citywhence hundreds of tons of wool will yearly be ex

ported. We m et several farm ers there who had come

from various districts to see the Governor, and to

express their desire of hav ing Bechuanaland annexedto the Cape Colony. They told us that they foundBechuanaland one of the finest countries for cattle and

sheep they had seen. Some of them besought us tovisit their farm s in order to ascertain for ourselves thenature of the land. A Mr. Steijn assured us that

, in

spite ofa drought of eight m onths’ duration which hisAdv . Fraser died last year —Tfransla tor.

VISIT TO VRIJBURG . 7

part of the country had just been undergo ing , he wasplentifully supplied wi th m ilk and butter, and hiscatt le were as fat as they could b e. Besides

,his last

crophad yielded him thousands of oatsheav es,and he

was expecting between 400 and 500 bags ofcorn thistwo other farmers confirmed . And

,I must say, not a

single farmer out of the dozens with whom I came in

contact described Bechuanaland otherwise than m ostfavourably as a country for cattle

,sheep and cultiva

tion. Thus Mr. Venter’s opinion regarding the pro

ductiv e character of the land was amply affirm ed.

The farm ers expressed their desire to establish a

branch of the Africander Bond in Bechuanaland , butthey somewhat feared doing so owing to the countrybeing a Crown Colony. With the aid of Ad voca teFraser, however, and the assent of Sir SidneyShippard, who will certainly have no objection to it,I am sure that ere long British Bechuanaland wil l alsohave a branch of the Bond ; this would be the cause of

greater political l ife am ongst the farmers, and we

would then hearmore of them and their country thanwe do now.

Before leaving Vrijburg we were entertained at a

dinner at which some interesting speeches were

del ivered. The speech of our Governor was appre

ciated much , bu t that of our Prem ier m ore, for hiswas a political one. Numerous other speeches followed

,

some very selfish and some strongly Jingoistic— som e

pleaded for their pockets and some for the cont inuanceof Bechuanaland"as a Crown Colony rather than its

Bechuanaland was annexed to the Cape Colony during the

last session (1895) of the Cape Parliam ent—Transla tor.


being annexed to the Cape, where there were so m anyBondsmen who had so much to say ! The Speechesthat pleased us m ost were those del ivered in trueSouth African spirit by Advocate Fraser and AttorneyWessels, whose sensible argum ents carried no small

amount of force with them ,and at the sam e tim e

revealed the men we were som e day to find the repre

sentat iv es of Bechuanaland in the Cape Parliament.On leaving Vrijburg we entered upon another fine,fruitful tract of country, and on ourway we m et severalfarmers, amongst whom was a Mr. Rood, form erlyof the Colesberg district, who, together wi th his wifeand a couple of children, was living in the open veldin a waggon and tent. We asked him what hethought of the veld .

“ Oh,

” said he,

“the veld is

as good as at Colesberg , and here I have an unl im itedextent of land at my disposal, whereas in the old

colony my land had becom e too narrow for m e. Asto my cattle and sheep

,they are in a very good

condition.

”

“ And have you sufficient water for your cattle ?we nex t inquired .

He assured us that he had m ore than he needed,

and that water was to be got anywhere at a depthof six or eight feet . “ The land is flat and even

,

he continued,“and rains are very copious from

December till the end of March . Every farm i splentiful ly supplied with water ; should there not beenough on the surface, dam s m ight easily be laid out .”

Mr. Venter and myself then partook of coffee withthe kind old gentleman and his wife

,and we left him

highly pleased . Afterwards, we passed through Mari

THE CHIEF MOSHETTE. 9

bogo, a large Kafir town, rich in soi l and in cattle and

sheep as well as in water.

The fol lowing Sunday night, the 5 th ofOctober, welodged at the Messrs . Worsey

’

s hotel, on this side of

the historical town of the chief,Moshette. This town

was the capital of the chief who, some years previouslyfought against the chief, Montsioa, and only gained thebest of t he war when som e irresponsible Boers cam eto his assistance ; but, later, was again attacked byMontsioa and completely overcome . Out of this wararose the subsequent dispute about Land Goschen and

Rooigrond,with which were connected the nam es of

Great Adriaan de la Rey, Van Niekerk , Bethell ,McKenz ie

,etc. ; and the quarrel did not term inate

until Brit ish troops,under command of Sir Charles

Warren crossed the border,and Mr. Rhodes, as

mediator,brought about an am icable settlement of

the m atter between England and the Transvaal . It ischiefly through the instrumentality of our PrimeMinister that McKenz ie and his rabble were preventedfrom playing the master over the land.

We journeyed from Kunana over a meadowy region,and arrived at Mafeking, about a hundred m iles fromVrijburg , at eight o’clock . This little town also wasin a bustle at the com ing of. the Governor. A granddinnerwas given to His Excel lency in the evening ; i tlasted til l past m idnight— no wonder m ost of uscomplained of headache the following day. AtMafeking, too, we were struck at the fine new buildings

,

the wel l laid-out streets,the large stores and shops and

the pretty townhouse and prison. A few years before,

this place was nothing more than an insignificant


ham let, and now i t was on the road to becom ing a

large flourishing city.

Messrs . Rhodes,Lange

,Venter and myself saddled

our horses and rode to cal l on the old ch ief, Mont sioa .

The sun was just setting when we found the agednegro-ruler sitting in front of his little house on a

sm al l chair surrounded by som e friends. Mr. Rhodeshad a long and interesting chat with him on whathad happened during the siege of his town. Theveteran chief showed us som e bullet-holes in his

house m ade by the enemy as they were forcing theirway into his town, who, however, were again beatenback. His recollections of the war were still veryv ivid ; and the name of Rhodes, too, he rem emberedwel l . The Prem ier had m eanwhile been sitting on

another little chair, and when he bade the chief goodb v e, the latter gave him i t as a rem embrance of

the visi t With this little present Mr. Rhodes wasmuch taken up, and frequently m ade use of it on hisfurther j ourney. To return his kindness

, the Prem ierhanded Mont sioa a few sovereigns for his church .

Whilst this m eeting was taking place, great rejoicingwas going on amongst the young people in the Kafir

town owing to a wedding that was taking place betweena white Kafir— called by some one of Bethell

’

s sons,”

— and a tall black girl . Their chief amusements weremusic and dancing. The bride and bridegroom

,typical

barbarians,danced with wilder vigour than the rest.

There was som ething attractively romantic, however, int he celebration,

and it was certainly very interestingto look upon such a number of different faces of Kafiryouth ofboth sexes .

THE PARTY DIVIDE. 1 1

On the eighth of the m onth we departed fromMafeking

,leaving behind us everything that was not

absolutely necessary on our journey. The Governorand his party with theirwaggons and horses had alreadyleft when we started. The two parties— that of theGovernor and that of the Prem ier—chose differentdirections for their journey ; the latter preferred totravel through British Bechuanaland into Kham a

’scountry

,whilst we selected travelling m

'

ci. MaricoTransvaal.


CHAPTER II .

Having parted from the Governor and his company, we s tart—Ourwaggons and their at tendant s—We spend our first nigh t withan old hunter, and he and his household enlighten us as to

Lobengula and his country Nelm apius is bes t left aloneWillow Park .

WE set out from Mafeking with three neat springwaggons

,each drawn by a team of eight strong mules ,

and each supplied wi th both a driver and a rein-holder.

Besides these,we had a folding cart drawn by four

first-rate mules (the driver of which also held thereins) and fiv e ponies which were ridden by our attendants, Bandmaster (ourwaiter) and Peter (our youngguard). Tonie was our cook. The tourists were

beside the Prem ier—Mr. Venter, Mr. Eduard Lange

(brother of the advocate), and m yself. To Mr.

E. Lange the charge of the waggons was entrusted .

In th i s way we had already travelled from Vrijburg,where we overtook ourwaggons

,which had been sent

in advance from Kim berley, and this arrangem ent

having been found to work well,we hoped to continue

our j ourney in this manner for the rest ofthe trip .

The first night after our parting with the Governorwe spent at De Pnt ten, a farm of which an old Mr.


and if war by that tim e has not been declared, I shal lreturn to that beautiful country.

It is a pity,old friend, observed Mr. Venter

that age has already such a hold on you, else

you m ight assist Mr. Rhodes in the event of war

breaking out .”

“ O ld ? ” repeated the grey-haired man with an air

ofpride “ if Rhodes wants to fight that tyrant, who hasbeen playing the bully for so long a tim e, then I and

all of us shal l go and help him , and I think I wil l fel lmore ofthose cruel naked animals than any of you will .

“ Yes,

added the old lady, who had been listeningwith keen interest to the conversation, what my

husband says I can confirm . He seldom m isses a shot ,and he still rides his horse like a young man.

”

“ But,” said Mr. Venter, do you think it is right of

Mr. Rhodes to deprive the Matabele of their land ? ”

“ Certainly,”she replied with emphasis, “

and none

but he can. That unfeeling, treacherous Lobengula,who has slain his brothers and captains out of mere

cove tousness of theirwealth, should b e brought to hiswits ! But all have been afraid ofhim ; now, however,Rhodes has come, and he is not afraid , and a man who

is not afraid we must assist. But then, we want h imto grant our people farms, and wil l he do that 9

Oh, yes, answered Mr. Venter,

“of that I am

convinced.

”

“ Then I am sure, the old lady replied,

“ that bothmy husband and my children would b e glad to j oin inthe war.

”

We left them and returned later in the evening.

The old couple had already gone to bed, but a son of

MORE ABO UT L OBENGULA . 15

theirs and a son-in-law (Mr. Fourie) were still up

enjoying a pipe. These latter, also , could not speakenough about the excellence of Mashonaland, and

affirm ed every word that had been told us by theirfather and m other. They, too, appeared very desirousto trek to Mashonaland. They wished from the bottomoftheir hearts that war should arise between the heartless Matabele chief and the “ chief of the CharteredCompany .

“ But , I asked,“ don’t you think it would be very

difficult to subdue Lobengula ?No,

”was the reply,

“ Lobengula is such a tyrant,and he is so hated by all Kafir tribes

,even by a

portion ofhis own, that I have no doubt some 1500 or

2000 men would immediately be in arm s against himif called to assist in putting him down. All are

aware, too, that he possesses a m agnificent country,

rich and extensive ; and, just as our aged father and

ourselves are wi ll ing to take up our guns to assist indepriving him and his nation of all power

,so there are

thousands of farm ers in the States and in the Colonyprepared to do the sam e if only they are rewarded fortheir trouble.

”

“ But,” I next asked, do you not think it would be

unjust to expel him from his land ?“ Decidedly not ,

” the two unanimously answered .

You people from the Cape are not aware,continued

one of them , of the cruel,inhuman deeds Lobengula

and his m en have committed,and are still comm itting .

”

Then we were told a little of the shocking Matabelehistory, which was afterwards also rela ted to us by a

m issionary,and to which I shall return.

16 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALANI) .

Perceiving the influence Morpheus now began toexert on our informants— revealed by yawns and

stretchings— u e bade them good-night and retiredto ourwaggons .The following morning I arose wi th a terrible head

ache due to that m eal ie-m ixture cal led Nelmapius,”

wh ich we had drunk the night before . I never coulddrink that stuff— and I know of very few who couldwithout suffering some bad effect. Such a headache as

I had that day I don’t rem ember ever havrng before.

Since then I have never again touched a drop of the

liquor, - at least,not knowingly.

Well, to return to our travel, the sky that m orningwas dark with threatening clouds and the air severelycold. Leav ing De Putten, we crossed the Transvaalborder into the Marico district, and at ten o’clockarrived at Mr. Taylor’s, Willow Park, a lovely farmprovided with abundant water and wi th rich arableland, a great part of which was under cul t ivation.

Trees, too, were plentiful there . These, toge ther with

the large comfortable dwelling-house,combined to

make the place a m ost pleasant abode.

After partaking of a substantial breakfast, we took

a walk about Mr. Taylor’

s place. The gardens, the

fruit trees, the fine lands—all looked beautiful indeed .

And Mr. Taylor was not behind the times in thefarming implem ents he employed ; he had his own

threshing-machine and corn-m ill. He had just mownhis fields

,had gathered thousands of oat sheav es, and

was expecting some eight hundred bags of corn. He

told us he would not accept less than for hisfarm .

THE MISSION-STATION A T IKALAFIJN. 1 7

On returning from our walk Mr. Taylor had his

spider and cart inspanned, and brought us to the

pretty m ission-station of Ik alafijn, situated in a largevalley between two b ills . The neatly-bui lt Kafir

huts and the fine gardens surrounding them makea very pretty appearance . The brook, that feeds thetown of a population of about ten thousand, runsthrough it. Its inhabitants, exclusively Kafirs, wearclothes, and in all respects the village is a credit toMissionary Jaussen in particular, and to the Transvaalin general . In the m issionary ’s garden som e fine

lem ons, citrons and oranges were to b e. seen. We ate

som e and were provided wi th a quantity for our

journey . Thence we returned to Willow Park .

18 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND.

CHAPTER III.

Buispoort— Travel lers ’ tales not all gospel—We outsparr at a

Germ an m issionary’s—More harrowing de tails about the chiefof the Matabele—A literal dance of death—W e have our

firs t misadventure—Kafirbeer bet ter than Nelmapius.

WE left VVrllow Park at three in the afternoon and

arrived towards evening at Buispoort , a narrow valebetween two hills, and very densely wooded . Therewe spent the night .Continuing our j ourney the fol lowing morning

,our

next outspan-place was at Mr. Niernand’

s. Thatgentleman told us that a brother of hi s

,shortly

before, whilst attempting to cross the Limpopo,was

drawn into the water by a crocodile and never seenagain.

From there we passed on to Mr. Kirton’s, which we

reached within half-an-hour, and here we were sorryto discover that we had m ade a m istake in outspanning

at Mr. Niemand’

s,forMr. Kirton had not only forage '

ready for our horses and mules, but had a breakfastprepared for us. Unfortunately we had already had .

our morning m eal at Mr. Niemand’

s.

Departing from Mr. Kirton’s in the afternoon, we

‘

passed through a tract of country well wooded and ;

THE GERMAN MISSIONARY. 19

grown with a tall dry grass fit for cattle . We leftMr. Rhodes at Mr. Kirton’s

,he arranging to follow

us a little later on,which he did two hours after

wards .We rested the nigh t at Brakfontein. It had been

warm during the day, so our horses and m uleswere weary and thirsty, and to our disappointment we learnt from some transport-riders that thewater there was v erv brackish and would certainlyinj uriously affect our animals if they drank too muchof it. But

,when once the poor creatures got to the

water, they drank as much as they could hold ; yetthey were able to consume at evening as m uch forageas usual, and they trot away the following m orningwith no less vigour than they did the m orning before .When one travels he should not attach much weightto all the alarm ing representations of danger madeto him .

The following m orning we outspanned at a Germanm issionary’s, close to a Kafir location, Vlijsfonteinby name. We were invited into the house and

almost forced to take breakfast there whether we

cared to do so or not . The m issionary was poor— a

fac t of which there was no want of indication— but aman m ore genial and kindhearted it i s impossible to

imagine . He spoke Kafir fluently,and conduc ted

service for the natives in a smal l temple everym orning . His pay he received from Germany .

He had m any interesting stories to tel l us aboutLobengula. He knew that monarch well , and had

several times been in his town. Not long ago, saidthe m iss ionary, Lobengula lrad given a dancing-feast


to his people that lasted three days . One of thechief

’s fondest young wives, who had taken a lively

part in i t,becam e tired of dancing and therefore

b egged him to allow her a little rest and refreshm ent .This the king refused, with the command, “ Danceon !

” It was then already noticeable that “ LO Benwas displeased with the desire of his favourite. She

obeyed his order,but returned to him a little while

afterwards and said to him“ I should like to know whether you,

if you werein my place, and were compelled to dance withoutstopping

, and without eat ing or drinking, would havebeen able to do it.”

At once the peevish king was in a rage, scolded her,commanded his counsellors imm ediately to assemble,and sentenced her to death . The poor girl fel l downat the m onarch’s feet, prayed for pardon, and told himshe had not intended to offend him by what she had

uttered. She caressed him and in every possible wayendeavoured to exci te his pity, but in vain. Thebystanders, too, were bold enough to plead for her,b ut the stubborn chief was not to be moved. Thehapless young woman was led out and beaten t o deathwith knobkerries

,and

, as was the custom to do withthose who wronged the king

,her body was cast out

side the town to be devoured by vultures .On another occasion— and here the m issionary washimself a witness— som e young Kafirs and Kafir girls,who had joined in a dance

,were falsely reported to

the king, by some of their enem ies, to have been

guilty of immorality. Now, the only punishm ent forimm orality was death . Lobengula summoned to his


straps . This plan answering adm irably, and all beingin order again, we once m ore proceeded comfortablyon our way.

The next place we halted at was a Kafir locationa large group of s traw huts— situated on the Marico

River and peopled by Matabele . They spoke Zulu ;and Mr. Rhodes, who had spent several years of hisearlier l ife in Natal, and had consequently learnt thelanguage, carried on som e conversa tionwith them . He

wanted to buy a waggon-pole from them,but there

were none in the whole place, except one belonging toan old waggon, the owner of which was not at hom e .

We next asked whether they could obtain any beerfor us

,and hardly had the request fallen from our lips

,

when off ran some Kafir girls to their huts,and

returned with heavy, hollowed calabashes on theirheads

,filled wi th Kafir beer. The day being hot , we

enjoyed the drink imm ensely, and we gave the donorsample reward for it, a kindness they much appreciated .

Our Prem ier wanted to know from them why they,being Matabele, were living on Transvaal t erritorv .

This was explained to him . The chiefof the locationwas a brother of Lobengula

,and he used to live in

Matabeleland ; but when the news of the m urder byLobengula of his other brother reached his ears

,he fled

d uring the night, wi th all his fam ily and followers,

into the Transvaal,and settled on this side of the Marico

River, where he knew he was beyond the grasp of the

envious m onarch . Later on he applied to the Governm ent of the South African Republic to b e allowed todwel l there undisturbed . This was of course willinglygranted, provided he subj ected him self to the laws

ANOTHER SON OF MOSELIKATSE. 23

of the State and regularly paid the required annualtaxes. This petty chief, l ike Lobengula, is a son ofMoselikatse and a relative of the bloodthirsty Dingaan,

whose history in connection with the m assacre of PietRetief and his followers is wel l known to all of us.

We left the location, and halted next on the bankof the Marico

,whence we continued our course up the

side of the river, both banks of which were grown wi thtrees

, tall grass, and thorny shrubs ; but the Ve ldround about looked m iserable.


CHAPTER IV.

The banks of the Limpopo—Mr. Rhodes a good shot—Mr. Venterfails to im itate a lion—An unsuccessfu l wild duck huntArrive at Palla’s Camp, and again meet the Governor.

AT noon on the 13th of Octoberwe arrived at t he junction of the Limpopo and Marico rivers . The Limpopo— or Crocodile

,as it i s cal led by many—i s a m agnifi

cent stream , densely grown on both sides with heavytrees of all descriptions . The view up or down thestream

,the banks of which are overhung with heavy

green boughs, i s most romantic, and pleasing to theeye of the travel ler.

We were now 1040 m i les from Capetown.

In the afternoon Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Venter wentout hunting. Clouds soon began to gather in the sky

,

and they grew heavier every m inutef A few heavyraindrops announced the approach of thunder and

lightning, and very soon thereafter the storm brokeout and raged violently. The two hunters returned tothe camp soaked to the skin, but they had not beenout in vain. Mr. Rhodes brought with him five

pheasants,and Mr. Venter a korhaan. In this way

our pots were continual ly suppl ied with del iciousbirds. Mr. Rhodes is a good shot ; he seldom

MENDING THE WA GG ON. 25

returned from a bird-hunt without bringing withhim a number ofpartridges, pheasants or k orhaans.

The following day we were fortunate enough to

come across,on our way, an abandoned cart

,the axle

ofwhich was broken. We took the pole out of it andfitted it into our own waggon, and found it to serveits purpose capitally ; no waggon-builder could havehelped us better.

Early in the afternoon we again outspanned on theriver’s bank, at a place called Harde Kool Boomso called from a large thick tree close by

,the stem

of which had the appearance of burnt coal . We

again travelled on, but only at a very slow speed,

because Sir Henry Loch, whom we had agreed to

meet at Palla’s Cam p, was still behind .

We went out hunt ing in the afternoon,Mr. Rhodes

and Mr. Venter choosing one direction, Mr. Langeand m yself another. Instead of hunting

,however

,

my friend and myself began m easuring the sizesof trees and ant-heaps . We found thorn-trees and

wi ld syringas of immense height,som e of them

m easuring round the stem from twenty to twenty-fiv efeet. The ant -heaps we m easured were from fifteento twenty-five feet h igh. We had been told at

Kimberley that at the Crocodile we would m eet wi thant -heaps of that enorm ous size and had ridiculed theidea, b ut now we realised the fact with our own

eyes ; and though when we were told at Vrijburgthat we would m eet with trees, through the trunks ofwhich a path could be cut wide enough for a cart andpair of horses to be driven, we sm iled incredulously ,

yet nowwe m easured such with our own hands .


Returning to our waggons we suddenly heard a faintroar. My companion knewwhere i t cam e from ; I didnot . He stood stil l for a m inute, and I was ratheranxious to know what it was. I suggested

,however,

that we had betterwalk on.

No,replied Mr. Lange,

“ let us go and see wha ti t is ! ” But the difficulty he had to refrain fromlaughing was so obvious that I soon discovered theroaring was a sham . Just then Mr. Venter made hi sappearance from behind a thicket, bursting out intolaughter as he did so. He intended to frighten m e byim itating a l ion

,and he m ight have been successful in

the attempt had Mr. Lange’s eyes not discovered thewould-be wild animal and thus betrayed the practical

joke, for who would have expected a man to roaram ongst the bushes of that wi ld and soli tary placeThe following m orning, at ten o ’c lock

,we out

spanned at a“

pan”

(lakelet), where hundreds of

wild duck were to be seen. I took my gun and

qu iet ly crept towards the water, soon reaching a spotfrom which I could easily have shot som e of the birds .Instead of firing at once

,I foolishly first wished to

make certain whether they were real ly wild duck. So

I stood up and stared at them for a little , when awayflew the whole lot of them ! They made their waytowards the Limpopo

,where I pursued them ; and

then they returned to the pan. Hoping to be com

pensated for my trouble and loss of time,I again

followed them . Bu t how disappointed was I when,

just as I was at the point of firing,Mr. Venter sent a

bullet amongst them from a great distance, killingonly one and causing the rest to fly away

,whilst I

ARRIVAL AT PALLA ’S CAMP. 27

stood there with one of those old—fashioned muzzleloaders charged heavily with water-fowl shot

,wi th

which I could easily have fel led a dozen birds,i f I

had approached them a l ittle nearer ! I fel t greatlyannoyed , but what could I do ?Mr. Rhodes had m eanwhile shot seven snipe

a dainty tit-bit in the dish.

From there we s tarted for Palla’s Camp . On our

way thitherwe passed a sm al l straw house,occupied

by a white m an, an Austral ian, whose acquaintance weafterwards made. Som e distance on th is side of the

Camp we found a m ons trous dead crocodile suspendedto a beam . The animal

,which had evidently been

killed a couple of days before, was nai led through the

m outh on to the wood,onwhich was written

,Welcome

SirHenry LochAt one o’clock on Wednesday

,the l 6 th

,we arrived

at Palla’s Camp , situated on t he Crocodile in Khama ’scountry

,and about 107 0 m i les distant from Cape

town and 430 from Kimberley . Here were stationedthe British Bechuanaland Pol ice and a numberalso of the Chartered Com pany . We wai ted therefor the Governor, who arrived the following day withall his officers, hussars, Spiders, carts, waggons, etc .

“ The m ore the m errier the saying goes, but itcertainly could not have been applied in this case .

To travel with so large a company was rather a

nuisance than a pleasure ; for, henceforward not only

would all game in front ofus be shot away—at least,

chased away— but we would have to travel in a

ploughed and dusty road .

At Palla’s Cam p, where there was a telegraph and a


post office, we all had the pleasure of getting newsfrom hom e

,a privilege we had not enj oyed for eight

days . We amply availed ourselves of the Opportunityof sending away letters and telegrams. The officesthere belong to the Chartered Company . Am ongstthe m essages I sent hom e there was one to my

youngest child , a boy of seven, that on my returnhom e I would have a lot of tales to

,

tell him aboutlions and crocodiles ; but little did I

"

then know the

tidings I was to receive the following day.


belonging to a Mr. Chapman. There we purchasedsome provisions and some Cape brandy, forwhich latter

we were charged at the m odest rate of twenty-one

shillings per gallon ! The shopkeeper showed us a boa

constrictorwhich he had dug out on the banks of the

river two days before . It was twelve feet in length ,and looked rather pretty and very clean, as it had justcast its slough .

Mr. Chapman gave us a detai led account of how

Grobbelaar had come to his end. Mr. Chapman him

self had been a wi tness of the collision between

Grobb elaar and Khama’s Kafirs. He was perfectly

certain,in spite of Sir Sidney Shippard’s denial of

the fact, that a Bamangwato Kafir had shot him .

Mr. Grobbelaar received the bullet in the ank le,and,

if medical attendance had been rendered in time, hiswound would very probably have healed ; but , as it

was,a surgeon was not called for until inflammation

had set in, which soon afterwards ended in the deathof the farm er.

On our way back to the camp we shot threepheasants

,having now fiv e in all . Arrived at the

station, we found the hunters busy at their dinner, ofwh ich they partook rather eagerly

,for they had had

nothing to eat since the morning. Mr. Rhodes gaveus an account of t he hunt. All along the Crocodilethere is a dense growth of trees and bushes, and thereis m uch resemblance between one part and another.

The Australian evidently knew but l ittle of the

place, for he had not been living there long, and had

never gone far away from his house. Consequently thehunters soon deviated a considerable distance from the

SAD NEWS IN THE CAMP . 31

road, and when they wanted to return to it they werein a puzzle whether to go to the right or to the left.Most perplexed ofall was the Australian guide

,

”who

knew as l ittle as the rest which way to turn. Theyalternately walked and rode now in this direction

,

then in that, in the forest, but could not discover

where they were . Maj or Sapte, who had as strongfaith in his compass as the Philistines in Dagon,

repeatedly threw i t down ; i t showed north , south, east,west, but was ofas little use as a mouse. The sun was

meanwhile fast sinking in the west. Mr. Venter,an

expert in following footmarks,at last suggested that

the party should turn back on the horses’ footprintsuntil they reached the road. This course was adopted

,

and the road at length discovered to the j oy of al l .

They returned without having shot so much as a fly ,and it was confessed on all hands that I had actedwisely in leaving them .

A little later in the evening sad news reached thecamp and put an end to the cheerful spiri t of the party .

At seven Mr. Rhodes inform ed Mr. Venter that hehad just received a telegram from the Hon. J. H .

Hofmeijr to the effect that Stavie, my l itt le son, was

seriously ill . On being told the news,a cold shiver

ran through me.

How can that be I said only yesterday bothMr. Sauer andMr. de Kock wired to me that myfam ily were all well.—No ! an acc ident must havehappened

,and my Stavie is dead

Imm ediately I wired to my wife, to Mr. Hofmerj r,

and to our doctor, to telegraph in detai l what hadhappened to the child, and to conceal nothing from me,


whether he was al ive or dead . The Governor, whodeeply sympathised with me, kindly telegraphed tothe authorities at Capetown to keep the wire Openuntil my telegram s had been answered. Mr. Rhodesdirected that the sam e should be done on his l ineand at eight the latter placed into my hand the

telegram that told me of Stav ie’

s death and theparticulars connected with it. The boy had, alongwith a l i ttle cousin of his

,of his own age (a daughter

of the Rev . W. A. Joubert), been pushed along in a

hand—cart in childish play by his sister, a little olderthan him self. The declivity of the road being great,the cart soon began to run with a force the little girlcould not control , ti ll one of the wheels struck againsta projecting stone on the side of the road, causingthe vehicle to fly out of her weak hands and com

pletely capsize. Little Rijk ie Joubert arose,only

having received a fright, but Stavie, with still a sm ileon his lips, lay a corpse. He had m et with instantaneous death , his neck having evidently been brokenby the fall. The shock this news gave me can only beim agined by a father in sim ilar circumstances.we left Palla’s Camp in the m orning of the 18th .

In the afternoon SirHenry tapped the telegraph wireand several telegram s were again received : I myself

got four, al l relating to my son’s fatal accident and

stating the arrangements that had been made for hisburial . To think of going hom e would

, of course, havebeen m adness on my part for, to do so, I should havebeen obliged to wai t nine days at Palla’s Camp fortheearliest postcart, and to spend another twelve on an

ox-waggon on the way to Mafeking.

PIETJE’S PROWESS. 33

As night approached we again outspanned on a bank

of the Lim popo, and in the beautifully transparentwater running over the clear drift sand we enj oyed a

bath .

“

The view from there over the endless woods andverdure was a sight most picturesque.

Thousands of sheep, goats and cattle from near and

far cam e to drink water. The cattle looked partienlarly well, and one could hardly bel ieve that scarcely

any rain had fal len there during the previous eightmonths . The sheep, too, looked well they must m akea pretty picture in the rainy season when grass i s

at its best. The veld was dry, but vastly better thanthat along the Marico R iver in the Transvaal . Nowonder, therefore, that Transvaalers always have hadsuch an envious eye on Khama’s country. Judgingfrom the numerous herds of cattle and sheep that wecontinual ly m et wi th on the borders of the Limpopo

,

Khama must be exceedingly rich . It is indeed to b eregretted that whites cannot obtain farm s there .We passed the night at Brakpan— 1150 m iles fromCapetown— and travelled the following day throughdense forests . We were now som e distance ahead of

the Governor’s party. On our way we noticed at

‘

a

distance two koodoos grazing— a bull and a cow.

Mr. Venter, who was the first to catch sight of them,

seized his rifle, m ounted his grey horse, and, followedby Pietj e

,our valet

,rode towards the animal s at a

gallop . Having approached them suffic iently closely,

he sprang from his horse and was about to fire, when

Pietje,who had come on at full speed behind

,rode over

him . The horse trod upon Mr. Venter, knocked the

gun out of his hand, and slightly bruised his shoulder.D

34 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALANI) .

The startled koodoos ran away at a short gal lop and

passed our carts at a distance of some 150 yards .

Not wishing to spoil Mr. Venter’s chance, I wouldnot at first shoot at them from the cart, but Mr.

Rhodes shouted,

“ Shoot at them ! Shoot at them ! ”

so I fired,the bullet striking the ground under the

belly of one of them . Had I known that Mr. Venterhad been ridden over by Pietj e, I m ight have takenmy time—m ight have got down from the cart

,lain

in ambush for the animals, and taken proper aim .

Anyhow,I confess I should have m ade a better

shot, and I feel asham ed of myself to think that I

completely m issed an animal as large as a mule at soshort a range . Mr. Venter after the accident againpursued the koodoos for some distance

,but had soon to

give upthe chase owing to the density ofgrowth roundabout the spot. He was fairly out of hum our on his

return and felt strongly incl ined to give Pietje a flogging

,but the latter appeared in such a state of terror

that he was let offwith a scolding.

CHAPTER VI.

arrive at Sofala—Journeying through a kloof—Too large a

company has its drawbacks—Mr. Rhodes shows the strengthofhis resolution and get s drenched—The meeting with Khama

—The ch ief’s differences wi th the farmers—Khama’s wifeRefleCt ions on the country .

AT half-past seven we arrived at a place cal ledSofala, one of the prettiest places we had yet com eto. The fig

,the syringa and various other trees grew

there luxuriantly : prettier trees one could hardlysee . Densely covered with a grand foliage of a

peculiar kind, those broad, lofty trees present a

stately aspect. Sofala lies on the slope of a m ountainfrom the one side of which there runs from a Springa stream of water large enough to supply a greatcity. The water issues from underneath a rock and

with such force that it could easily set a large m illin rapid m otion. But

,as it is

, it i s allowed to run

waste into a m arshy vale,th e surface of which is of a

very spongy character. We observed that manyKafirs and Kafir wom en from the neighbourhoodfetched their water from there. Close to the fountainitself

,however, no one is allowed to dwell, for Khama

reserves the place for his cattle . I was surprised thatthe chief did not construct a dam there

,nor does itD 2


seem to have struck his subjects to do so. I am

positive that ere long a village wil l be laid out thereby white people .From Sofala we journeyed through a long kloof withhigh hills on each side, the soil of which appearedcapitally suited for agriculture. Thousands of bagsof corn might be produced there annually . Here and

there we noticed a Kafir woman on the hill-slopesdigging in the soil to plant m ealies . At noon we

outspanned under a few thorn trees . The day washot

, and there was no water for our horses and mules .At half-past three we again inspanned, and at sixwe reached Mahapi, a large pan, green and pretty

, but

containing hardly any water— se little, that when wehad satisfied ourselves we could barely quench thethirst of our horses and mules, and the poor animalsof the Governor had to drink m ud. It is on suchoccasions that the disadvantages attendant on travellingin large parties are most plainly evident.We left Mahapi at five o

’

clock the following m orning,

and had to travel on a road both sandy and heavy. Mr.

Rhodes, Mr. Lange and myself at first sat upon the

cart,but the poor horses had to exert so much strength

in pulling the vehicle along that the Prem ier and Igot dewn and walked . It was a pretty forest we weregoing through

,and am ongst the trees we passed there

were some l iteral ly decked in yellow flowers whichyielded a sweet perfum e much like that of the comm on

garden violet. As the road afterwards becam e easierfor the animals, Mr. Rhodes and I again got into thecart. The next place we stopped at was Malalola (or,the Vley

,as some called it), a nice green spot over


indeed surprised on closer inspection to see so m any

thousands of well-built huts together. These“

have allbeen erected within the previous eighteen months, theirpresent occupants hav ing formerly lived at Shoshong,which they abandoned owing, they say, to want of water

and salubrity . Palapye, by virtue of its elevation, i s amuch healthier place than Shoshong

,and it has its

own running water, whilst at the latter place waterhadto b e dug for. However, it may pretty safely beasserted that Khama would never have undertaken thetrek to Palapye were it not that Palapye lay withint he sphere of influence of the Chartered Company ,and, consequently

,under British protection. Before

the Chartered Com pany had a hold on the land , Kham a

did not dare to m ove one m ile nearer t o Lobengulathan he was ; but now,

under the shelter of the whitem an, he has been enabled to shorten the distancebetween Lobengula’s capital and his own by seventym iles . He is, therefore, under obligation to the British ,and particularly so to Mr. Rhodes .We regretted to learn that

,a few days previous to

our com ing, Khama had prohibited some Transvaalfarm ers

,who had arrived there with waggons heav ily

loaded with corn, m ealies, oat sheav es, etc.

,from sel ling

to the British South African Com pany,and had ordered

them immediately to quit his town under penalty of

forfeiture of their produce . Khama had furthermorecommanded Mr. Gifford not to b uy anything from the

farm ers . If he did so,Kham a would seize the pur

chased articles and drive the Company out ofhis land .

No course was open but to obey , and the farmers withtheir ful l waggons and their thin oxen (for it was very

MR . RHODES ’PR OPHECY. 39

dry just then) had to return whence they cam e. Mr.

Rhodes, who was very annoyed on hearing this , askedMr. Gifford the cause of Khama

’s attitude towards thefarmers and the Com pany . Mr. Gifford ascribed it tothe chief’s hatred of the Boers, the reason assigned byKhama forwhich being that the farm ers were in thehabit of stealing a number of his cattle on theirwayhom e from his town—a tale which

,of course

,neither

Mr. Rhodes norMr. G ifford would credit.We could not get in the whole of Palapye sufficient

forage to satisfy the wants of our comparatively fewdraught animals. The little there was had to b e carefully and sparingly divided between Sir Henry’s andour own well-deserving beasts— hence the reason whywe so soon departed from the town. Sorely to bepitied must have been the cattle that visited Palapyeshortly after our departure from it !

Indignant at Khama’s conduct towards the farmers

and dissatisfied with the m eagre food our horses hadreceived, I prophesied as we left the town that as sureas Khama l ived his day of reckoning would com e !

only a little time m ore and his powers would becrippled

,if not destroyed. Mr. Gifford repeated to the

High Comm issioner what he had told the Premier.

What weight His Excellency attached to it I cannottell ; but this I know,

t he Prim e Minister’s intercourse with Khama was as conspicuously little as theGovernor’s was the contrary .

My personal estimation of the strength ofthe Baman

gwato chief is that, as sure as twice two are four, twohundred and fifty Boers would be able to capture hisstronghold , and clear every l iving soul out of it within


the space of twenty-four hours. The Bamangwatosappeared to us a weak, m iserable lot. One Boer wouldput a hundred of them to flight .Palapye l ies about 4500 feet above the level of the

sea,and has therefore a pleasant climate . Khama

dwells in a neat Kafir house, and has a passably

decent, but uncomfortably fat, woman for a wife. Hehas a tal l, slender, well-dressed and not bad-lookingas far as features go - son of twenty-one, who appearshowever not to be worth much ; he looks a feeblegood-for-nothing . Almost all Khama’s people wearclothes .At Palapye, where there i s a telegraph and a post

office, I received about half-a-dozen telegram s fromhome. The offices are built after Kafir style

,for

Khama objects to having square houses on his land .

Palapye is 1 185 m iles from Capetown.

We left the Kafir city at a quarter to seven,Khama and his son conducting Sir Henry out of thetown with a t rain ofriders . The way wound over hills

and dales, and was exceedingly stony and stumpy .

After an hour’s journey over the roots and rocks

Khama cerem oniously bade the Governor,lords

,

majors, captains, colonels and l ieutenants farewell.The comedy was then over, and we travelled com

fortab ly on along an extensive and verdant valley on

which we here and there observed a Kafir wom an

planting m ealies . Through the m iddle of the valley

runs the Lotsani R iver, on the bank of which weoutspanned after having covered fifteen m iles fromPalapye . After breakfast we continued our travel upthe side of the river until we reached Tjopong, a place

THE LOTSANI VALLEY. 41

situated on the slope ofa m ountain and rich inverdure .It resembled Sofala to some extent

,and, l ike Sofala,

was an adm irable site for a village . From there wehad an extensive view far over the picturesque Lotsanival ley, a valley som e twenty-fiv e m iles long and six

broad. Its soi l being as fertile as soil can be,thousands of people should be able to gain their livingout of it. Of the excel lence of the veld on every sideof the val ley the condition of the cattle that grazedupon it afforded ample proof. It is indeed a pity thatland which m ight yearly produce thousands of bags ofgrain, potatoes, beans, m eal ies and various fruitsshould lie uncultivated . But I hope and expect thatthat tract of land

,which is now the habitation of the

riet-buck and the red-buck,the guinea-fowl, the water

fowl and the bittern, wil l in time—and in time not far

distant— be occupied and tilled by the white sons ofSouth Africa.


CHAPTER VII.

Leave Tjopong—We out span and I go a-fishing—A man saved from

drowning—A talk with SirHenry Loch .

WE left Tjopong the following morning,and after

crossing som e hills, again outspanned on the banks of

the Lotsani. The Prem ier’s party was the first to arriveat the spot, and we selected our outspan place beneaththe sheltering boughs of three large wi ld fig-trees nearto which there was a very large natural pool of waterabounding in various fish

,if not also in crocodiles .

The weatherwas rather oppressive,and so at half-past

ten, while Tonie was getting our breakfast ready, wewent to refresh ourselves in the pool close by ; but ,as we were wont to do in such strange waters, we werevery careful not to go in too deep . After breakfast we began fishing

,and the first fish I drew up was

a barber, a creature as large as the geelbek ”

(Capesalmon). Meanwhile the Governor had arrived wi thhis party and outspanned not far from us. Hisreckless hussars very soon dashed into the water, andswam and dived withou t any regard to the probablepresence of crocodiles there . I went on fishing. Darkclouds meanwhile gathered above my head and sentdown some int erm itt ent big drops . These were

A HAILSTORM. 43

followed by a strange crashing noise in the air; I ranto our waggons, and Mr. Venter advised m e to immediately get into one of them ,

for the noise I heardwas the signal of the approach of a hailstorm . Iobeyed

, and hardly was I in the waggon when downcame the hailstones, some as large as pigeon eggs .Fortunately it was only a smal l portion of the showerthat passed over us, the main part falling som emi les off.When the bad weather was over I returned to thepool and feund all my fish there stil l except thebarber. I inquired after i t, and discovered to myvexation that, after the barber had lain there for m orethan an hour

,Pietje had taken i t and repeatedly

dipped its head in the water, with the consequencethat it revived in strength and escaped from his handsinto the pond . My fingers itched to box t he fellow’sears, which I certainly would have done had he notoutstripped me in the race that followed. I resumedfishing

,but the air had been so chilled that the fish

becam e too lazy to bite . Whilst stil l at my post,lamenting my loss, half-a-dozen hussars made theirappearance at the pool, and, at the other end of it,

jumped into the water. These m en had arrived afterthe rest of the company

,having been left in charge of

the crippled and sore~backed horses.Our boys were now busy inspanning the m ules

,

and a fish was m eanwhile cautiously biting at myhook . Mr. Lange had already call ed me twice

,but I

was determ ined to haul up the tantal ising creaturebefore I left . Som e noise from the other end of thepond reached my ears, but I was too interested in my


fishing to pay much heed to it, until I plainly heardthat it was a cry for help . I ran up to the placewhere the hussars had been bathing and, as Iapproached it, perceived a man

’s hand stretched outof the water whi lst his comrades on shore appeared ingreat consternation. In a m oment I threw off my

jacket, waistcoat and boots, and without further un

dressing m yself, leaped into the water. The drowningman had then already sunk, but I swam to the Spotwhere I had last caught sight of him ,

dived to thebottom , and chanced to strike his body. I graspedhim by the arm and brought him Up. As soon as Ihad his head up a large quantity of water belchedfrom his m outh

,but his colour was blue, his head as

well as his arm s hung slack,and, as he did not make

the faintest m otion, I natural ly believed the m an was

dead . Holding him up by the left arm ,I managed to

keep his head above water, and so swam shorewards

with him . Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Lange and Mr. Venter,who had suspected dangerwhen they noticed m e run

to the spot where they knew the hussars had beenbathing, now appeared on the scene. Mr. Venter threwhis boots offand came to my assistance ; and, together,we succeeded in bringing the man to the shore. I wasthen very fatigued, but felt pleased at having done myduty . The poor hussar revived in the hands of hiscomrades, recovered his senses, and soon was able to

ri se and walk away with the others, who al l were now

very quiet, and whose looks were m ingled with joy andshyness .Returning to the waggons, Mr. Rhodes mademe takesom e whisky and soda to strengthen and refresh me .


CHAPTER VIII;

adventure with a Iron—The weather not what we expectedMr. Rhodes reminds me of my grandfh ther—Sunday in the

camp—Sir Henry goes out hunting and Mr. Venter and Ic ,

spend the morning tree measuring—We lose our way and

meet some game which we fail to secure—The Premier thebes t sportsman.

CONTINUING our j ourney the following morning in

chil ly weather, we arrived and outspanned at BrakRiver No. 2 . The river contains num erous deeppool s, on the sides of which pretty shells were to befound . We met a handsome young Matabele therewith a broad scar upon his back . The Prim eMinister

,who has a fluent command of the Zulu

language, asked him how he had recei v ed that mark

,

and “ Lion ”was his answer. He then proceeded to

relate his encounterwith the k ing of animals . Whilehunting once with som e of his comrades they met a

l ion,and

,to overpower the animal, they surrounded it.

Finding itself locked in on all sides , it rushed uponthe Zulu (our inform ant) and with its paw tore a deepgash in his back . Fortunately for him , one of hisfellow-sportsmen just then drove an assegai into theenraged animal , which thereupon abandoned the Zuluwi thout using its teeth and fled ; b ut they had not

THE LION RETURNS. 47

seen the last of it : the proud beast, to avenge its

wound, returned with renewed fury and again attackedthem . A long and desperate fight ensued between

the young adventurous Kafirs and the animal-king,ending in the latter succumbing to exhaustion and theumerous assegai-wounds infl icted upon it—not , how

ever,before it had torn to pieces som e of the best

dogs of the hunters and had injured several of thelatter, am ong whom our informant came off worst .From there we j ourneyed on to Mequeche, a pretty

watering-place, where fine, fat , bastard sheep were tob e seen grazing on the healthy v eld .

The night was chilly and the sky covered withclouds

,whilst a b itterlv cold wind was furiously

blowing. We expected heavy rains, but Mr. Venter,

a clever weather-pr'ophet, assured us that not a dropwould fal l

,for the wind

’

was too strong and cold,

and his predict ion proved correct. The Hon. J. H .

Hofmeijr had told us before we left Capetown that we should prepare ourselves to m eet withexcessively hot weather in the region through wh ichwe were now travell ing . He would have been m orecorrect if he had warned us to do the contrary. Wehad now to walk in overcoats . I mus t add, however,that we were assured by the natives of the place thatthe low temperature we were m eeting with was

exceptional for the season of the year.

Our course next m orning was through a ratherdense wood and in a path full of stum ps of hewn-downtrees, a source of considerable inconvenience to us

, our

cart suffering repeated shocks . We were now far inadvance of Sir Henry. At half-past nine we cut


spanned on the grassy border of the little Parkwe

River, kindled a large fire, and seated ourselves aroundit. I was forcibly rem inded , in the pictureMr. Rhodespresented sitting on his l ittle chair by the fireside , ofmy departed grandfather, who was wont in the winterevenings to sit before his hearth and warm his handsover the fire.

The Parkwe valley has a very ri ch soil . The lowlying plains round about are pretty densely inhabitedand the hills beautifully adorned with trees. There isa smal l station at Parkwe . We ou tspanned not far

from it,and close also to som e large crematart trees .

We measured the trunks of three by m eans of a

tape-line gi ven us by Sir Sidney Shippard . Theym easured respectivel y 45, 46 , and 47 feet in circumference

,and Lord Elphinstone was so much

'

tak en upwith their appearance that he took a sketch of

them .

It was Sunday and all was quiet in the camp . Asevening approached a pile of wood was collected forthe making ofa “ bonfire — as the hussars called itwhen darkness set in. At half-past eight the fire wasmade

,and all the camp was l it up by it . The delight

ful warm th it afforded us was exceedingly appreciated ,for the weather was very cold . All seated them selvesaround the fire—som e on chairs

,som e on footstools

,

som e on benches, and others on the bare ground. Thesinging of sacred hymns followed

, and i t was gloriousmusic to listen to in that lonesome wi ld

,1286 m iles

from Capetown. That grand psalm,

“ Psalmespecial ly, sung by the attendants of the waggons andby those of us who understood Dutch

,could not but

A HALT FOR HUNTING. 49

touch our feelings—m ine in particular, for my lostsweet child

,

"

who had then just been a week in his

grave, was constantly present in my m ind .

The following day brought no change in thetemperature. Heavy clouds still overhung the sky,this making the third successive day that the sun hadbeen hidden from our view.

SirHenry Loch and all his party went out hunting .

So also did Mr. Rhodes shortly afterwards,but in a

different direction. Mr. Venter, Mr. Lange and I re

mained at the camp. Sir Henry’s action did not alto

gether please 11s. The weather was fine for travelling ;we had a long journey stil l before us ; and here wewere detained for the pleasure ofHis Excellency

, who,

of course, would again shoot as l ittle gam e as he did atPalla’s Camp and at the Lotsani. At the latter placehis hunt lasted half a day, and at the former a whole

one. Anyway, we had to be content, for without theGovernor we could not proceed ; and

,if we could, we

would have been obliged to wai t for him at Macloutsie.

After breakfast Mr. Venter and I, having nothingelse to do, also decided to go out hunting . We walkedthrough the river and cam e out upon a plain as levelas a table and th ickly grown with large trees, underwhich numerous footprints of various kinds of buck swere to be seen. We walked on til l we came to a

high elevation which we mounted,and from there we

had a distinct v iew of our camp . At the foot of

the hill stood som e huge baobab or crematart trees,

and beyond, as far as our eyes carried us,there was

nothing but one vast, endless forest . We descendedthe hill and went to take the measure of the baobabs .

E


The circumference of the trunk of one of them was

fifty-three feet, and that of another (six feet from the

ground) sixty-five. These were the largest trees wehad thus far m et with . Fancy a trunk with a diam eterof twenty-two feet !Some distance farther we met the two special

reporters for the Cape Argus, along with the heliographsignalman. One of the three had clambered up a

baobab tree to pick som e of i ts fruit, but found the

difficul ty of making his way down greater than hehad foreseen. It was amusing to watch the anxietythe poor fellow was in. The four of us beneath thetree stood ready to catch him should he tumble—a

thing that appeared very probable. However,he landed

safely on t he ground. We each took some of thefruit with us, the reporters and their associate returning to the heliograph hill . Mr. Venter and I againmade for the camp, but, after having walked abouttwo hours without reaching the banks of the Parkwe

,

we discovered to our dismay that we had lost ourway.

We turned back to another hill, and from the top of itwe could see our waggons at a distance, as also a largeherd of oxen and goats near us making theirway towards the river. We descended the hi ll

,entered the

footpaths of these animals,and followed their direction.

On the way we m et the tutor of SirHenry’s son

, who,

like ourselves, had m issed his way. We also came

across three red-bucks of the size of donkeys,but

, the

growth there being rather dense,they disappeared from

our sight before we could fire at them . At length,

warm and weary, after having wandered about in the

fores t fully six hours, to our great relief we reached the

THE G OVERNOR RETURNS. 5 1

camp, and spent the rest of the afternoon res t ing in a

waggon.

Towards sunset the Governor and his party returnedfrom their hunt. Sir Frederick Carrington had shot asteenbuck, and that was the only gam e the party wasable to bring home with them . Sir Henry Loch and

his son, I was told, had fired several shots at koodoos

(antelopes of the size of young cows), and kwaggas

(striped animals resem bling the zebra), but al l withoutsuccess.It became late, and Mr. Rhodes and his two com

panions were stil l out . We felt rather uneasy aboutthem and resolved to kindle a large fire ‘

when it grewdarker, on a hil l close by ; but before there was any

necessity for it the three turned up, bringing with themeight pheasants and two korhaans. Toni e had meanwhile prepared an excellent dinner, and the hungryPrim e Minister and his tired companions had no scantshare of it.We did not see the Governor that evening, either

because (I suppose) he felt fatigued and was lying on

his couch, or because he was out of sorts at not having

sho t anything that day, and drd no t feel in the humourfor company .


CHAPTER IX .

The place of death —Macloutsie—Though man proposes,God

disposes—A review of the British Bechuana police—Telegraph facilities—A separat ion which Sir Henry Loch d i sapproves—Mr. Rhodes wishes to see Mashonaland, and we goforward.

LEAVING Parkwe on the morning of the 28th of

the m onth,we again passed over veld of a good

kind wel l grown with trees,and the next place we

stopped at was the Marapong R iver.

“ Marapong ”

signifies “ the place of deat Th is nam e was givento the river owing to the terrible fevers that once upona time used to rage there and the many lives theycarried off. The river is broad and deep and must bevery strong when ful l.At half-past ten we came to Macloutsie

,a large camp

,

where three hundred of the Briti sh Bechuanalandpolice and one hundred of the British South AfricaCompany were stationed. By these men we were wel lreceived, and were provided with everything we neededexcept drink. It surprised me to find so wel l built acamp in that wild part of the world, considering that

the station was then only half a year old. It had a

neat hospital under a galvanised roof, and amongst thefew patients in it was a son of Lord Elphinstone

,who


After the review His Excellency del ivered an eloquentspeech

,which every li stener heartily applauded.

I was surprised to see so many Africanders amongstthe troops of the Chartered Company— there were as

many,I think . as British—and i t gave m e pleasure

to find them al l cheerful and in the best of spirits.True

,there had been a few rare cases of fever at

Macloutsie, but hitherto no deaths owing to thatdisease.After the delivery ofSir Henry

’s address we visitedthe fort

,a strong sol id piece of work defended on all

sides by Gatl ing guns, from which a thousand shotscould be fired wi thin the space of thirty m inut es .Maclouts ie also enj oyed the privilege of a post and

telegraph office.

Young Elphinstone was much better the followingm orning, and the del ighted father began m akingarrangem ents to take him to the Cape, and thence to

England.

The distance between Macloutsie and Capetown is

m iles . Up to there‘ the telegraph wire had

followed us,and a telegram could be sent from either

term inus to the other end and be answered all withinhalf-an-hour. Who wil l still dare say that SouthernAfrica does not advance with rapid strides ? The

Macloutsie Camp stands about feet above thesea-level

,and

,therefore

,more than a thousand feet

lower than Palapye . However, the spot is healthyand has been wel l chosen.

Up to Macloutsie, the disputed boundary betweenKham a

’s and Lobengula’s countries, the parties of theGovernorand the Pren ier had been tra vel ling together

,

THE HIGH COMMISSIONER TURNS. 55

but they were now going to separate ; the latterwished to extend his tripnorthwards, whilst the form erwas going to turn. Sir Henry expressed great dissatisfaction at Mr. Rhodes

’

s resolve, but ultimatelyassented to his proceeding up to Tul i Camp—aboutanother seventy m iles— but not a yard farther.

The reason of this reluctance of the High Commissioner lay in the fact that he had received earnestwarnings from Buluwayo, Lobengula

’s capi tal , fromMr. Moffat and others, to the effect that the youngblood of the Matabele yearned forwar

,would no longer

be controlled by their king, andwould certainly capturethe “ Koz i Mal i (man of m oney) if they got theopportunity ; and that, therefore, it was extrem elyinadvisable for the Prem ier to penetrate into theMatabele country. Besides, it would b e an insult toHis Black Maj esty if Mr. Rhodes travelled throughhis land wi thout visiting his capital . On the otherhand, should he visit that town, the chances wereten to one that Lobengula would take him prisonermerely to please his people, i f for no other reason.

The Governor added that, should Mr. Rhodes becaptured, he, as High Comm iss ioner for the colony ofwhich Mr. Rhodes was Prim e Minister, would be boundto come to the rescue ; and what unpleasantness, whichm ight easily have been avoided , would be created !War would b e the probable outcome

,and i t might

cost m ill ions to carry it out. “ Remember,

”

Sir

Henry rem inded him,you are not Mr. Rhodes alone

,

but also the Prim e Minister of the Cape Colony .

”

Sir Frederick Carrington, Sir Sidney Shippard and

Captain Bower endorsed the Governor’s words .


Mr. Rhodes courteously replied that the object ofhis j ourney was not to see Bechuanaland and Khama

’sland, but Mashonaland ; he was

.

standing on the border,he said, of the British Protectorate, but wanted to crossover to his own protectorate and his fellow-travellers,he added, had com e for the sam e purpose as himself.He therefore hoped it would not be taken amiss i fhe did not return then and there with the Governor’s .

party . Having done with Mr. Rhodes, Sir Henrysent for Mr. Venter and myself. With us

,too

,as he

had done also at Palapye, he spoke long and seriouslyon the situation, earnestly requesting us to considerand alter our plans, laying before us the severaldangers we wou ld otherwise incur, and asking us to useour influence in inducing the Prem ier to abandon hisproject of carrying his j ourney farther than Tuli Camp .

“ You would run the risk,” said he, of being m ade

the prisoners ofLobengula and locked up in Buluwayo ;of being attacked and murdered at Mount Hampden ;and of being detained by swollen rivers

,which would

give the Matabele ample opportunity of disposing of

you at theirwi ll .”

These words carried som e weight with them,but we

remained firm in our resolve, for it would indeed havebeen folly on our part to turn back after havingnearly reached the border of the country we had

come to see.

“ But,

” said we,“ if your Excellency is of opinion

,

and Mr. Rhodes agrees with it, that it i s better forMr. Rhodes not to prolong his tour, let him halt andturn at Tuli, whi le we take a waggon and some of the

strongermules and enterMashonaland .

”

WE GO OUR OWN WA Y. 57

Yes,

replied SirHenry ; but that is not whatMr.

Rhodes would l ike to see. If you extend the j ourney,he will not stay behind .

”

But the Governor’s endeavours to persuade us tochange our m ind were exercised in vain, and withsom e degree of mutual d issatisfaction the meetingended.

We thought that the sooner we left the camp thebetter ; so we had our waggons inspanned towardsevening

,and a little after sunset we drove off, leaving

the Premier, who prom ised to follow us the nextm orning

,behind .


CHAPTER X .

A dark nigh t , and a recalcitrant driver—\Ve find we have an

invalid in the company—“Te go on and pass through a countrydeserted through fear of Lobengula— A let ter of warning fromthe Governor.

THE road leading from the camp was in a deplorablecondition, and

,as darkness was setting in

,we

'

could

only m ove forward slowly and carrtiously. It soonbecame so dark that we could hardly see the way.

Mr. Venter and I m ounted our horses and rode in frontof the waggons, two of the Chartered Company ’s policedirecting us. The waggons and their inmates hadno pleasant tim e of it , as they had to endure shockafter shock through the brokenness of the road. WithMr. Lange’s approval, we outspanned sooner than we

had at first intended, for our patience at such travellingwas beginning to give way.

On rising next morning we found that we had out

spanned in front of some dangerous ditches,and that

we had thus been fortunate in halting where we did .

To return to the previous night : shortly afterwe hadunteam ed the anim als, we not iced that George

,one of

the drivers , was m ore talkative than usual , so muchso that no further indication of his being under theinfluence ofBacchus was necessary ; he m ust have beendrinking a t Macloutsie. Mr. Lange advised him to ho ld

WE SEE OUR LAST OF GEORGE. 59

his tongue,but that only made him worse ; he became

impertinent and threatened to leave the party.

“ Well,go if you like said Mr. Lange.

George took his b ag and all he had and made hisway back to Macloutsie. Arri ved there

,he complained

to Mr. Rhodes that Mr. Lange had i ll-t reated him .

The Prem ier,however, paid no attention to his tale ,

and George thought it best to forget the m atter and

return to the waggons in Mr. Rhodes ’ cart. Butthe poor fellow had to discover to his regret that hehad cheated him self

,for t he Prem ier next m orning

refused him a seat in the cart,and there was no other

m eans by which he could again overtake the waggons—and this was the last we heard of George. Heprobably returned to Palapye, where he had a wife

(a native ofGenadendal), who had been brought up byMr. Moffat at Buluwayo.

During the night Mr. Venter complained of somewhat serious indisposit ion, so we decided next m orningto send for the doctor at Macloutsie before we againproceeded on our j ourney. We despatched Hackwell

,

one of the police, for the purpose, and not long afterwards the m i litary doctor arrived in company withMr. Rhodes . The patient was carefully exam ined

,but

no thing was found wrong with him excep t that hisstomach was a little disordered, and that was quicklyremedied by a few pills .Mr. Rhodes returned with the physician to Maclout

sie, and we shortly afterwards crossed the Maclou tsieRiver, the banks ofwhich were adorned with the palmand the wi ld date. Twelve m iles further we restedat the Lotsani River, and there awaited Mr. Rhodes.


The latter had m et Colonel'

Pennyfather (who hadcome from Mount Hampden) at Macloutsie the nigh twe left it, and the Prem ier had much to communicateto his friend and som e business to transact with himhence the delay. He prom ised to leave Macloutsie atnight time with the rise of the m oon, and overtake us .During the day we went out hunting and shot som epheasants and partridges , b ut we took care not to gotoo far from the waggons , for fear of losing ourway.

During the hunt we cam e across som e desolate Kafirkraals, abandoned probably on account of their dangerons situation. All about these places shel ls of wilddates and seeds ofvarious fruits were to b e seen on the

ground. Am ongst the animals inhabiting that part ofthe country are the lion

,the wolf

,the ape, the koodoo,

the kwagga, and the wild dog. But though we saw

the traces of m ost of these animals, we did not leaveour waggons sufficiently far to chase any of them .

We were now travelling on the disputed territorybetween Macloutsie and Tuli

,a beautiful piece of

country with many stream s flowing through it. No

one owns it and very few l ive in it. It is the countrywhere Lobengula so unexpectedly once fel l uponKhama

’s Kafirs, slew the men, and carried off their

wives and children. No wonder,therefore

,that we

passed so many kraals destitute of people .As intended

,Mr. Rhodes left Macloutsie at half

past twelve at night, as the m oon lifted its headabove the horizon. But before he started he had tosuffer some annoyance at the hands of Anthony

, the

coachman,who was not at his post when the cart

had to be inspanned,notwithstanding the repeated


CHAPTER XI.

\Ve arrive at the Tuli River—Other touris ts there besides ourselvesOur ideas considered impracticable—Mr. Rhodes gives up

his project with regret—The story ofa brave lion-hunter.

ON Saturday morning, the 1st of November, we foundourselves c lose to the picturesque Tuli or Shashi River.

Not many days previously the ri ver had been so drythat it contained only smal l pools of standing waterhere and there ; b ut now

, due to the rain that hadfallen two days before, i t was converted into a roaringcurrent. We could hardly believe our eyes when wesaw so strong a stream in so comparatively dry a

country. Not far from the river stands the TuliCamp, situated on a hill about 2000 feet above thesea-level, and therefore lower than the camp at

Macloutsie. It is a pret ty and wel l-fort ified camp,plent ifully suppl ied with cannon and ammunition. The

police, numbering about two hundred, were in as gooda condition, as strong and healthy , as m ight have beendesired.

We were now on the northern border of the disputedterritory and 137 0 m i les from Capetown. The fort wasprovided, on a smal l scaleh with shops, sm it lries, and a

church .

A MEETING WITH BOERS. 63

We made the acquaintance there of Captain Turner,a very am iable and good-natured gentleman.

We took a bath in the Tul i and enj oyed it immensely. The water was as clear as crystal . The

banks of the riverwere covered with beautiful trees,the wi ld fig being the most prom inent ; som e of themm easured round the trunk between 45 and 50 feet.From shore to shore the Tuli has a width of from600 to 7 00 yards, but during the rainy season it

frequently happened that the river ov erflowed, and

then it was half-a-dozen times as wi de— in fact,there

have been times when the river in som e parts hashad a breadth of three m iles.Not far from us som e Boer waggons were out

spanned . Mr. Venter and I went to them and madethe acquaintance of the people ; they were farmersfrom the Zoutspansberg District who had - com e tosell their produce at the camp, for which

,they

said, they always received good value, and the m embers of the cam p always treated them with courtesyand kindness . On this occasion, for instance, theytold us, Captain Turner had been so pleased to see

the waggons approaching that he immediately senta team of eight oxen to the assistance of eachwaggon, for he was afraid that the tired oxen of

the farmers would b e unable to draw the waggonsthrough the stream . At this action ofthe Captain thefarm ers were as m uch pleased as surprised

, the m oreso because they had nothing to pay for it. They spokev ery highly in praise of all the Englishmen at thecamp, avowing they had never in their lives m et

kinder people.


They had received a cheque from Captain Turnerpayable at the Standard Bank

,Pietersburg

,but

, not

being used to paper m oney, they asked whether thatm ode of paym ent was all right . We assured them i twas

, and told them it was better to have their m oneypaid in cheques than in coin, for the former could bem ore safely and conveniently carried ; at Pietersburgthey would recei ve every penny of the sum stated on

the cheque. They thanked us for the assurance. Someof them

,I may mention— of whom Messrs. Visser,

Du Preez , and Van Aarde were the ones we mostconversed with — belonged to the roortrekkers (i.e.

earliest em igrants) to Zoutpansberg, where they earnedtheir living chiefly by hunting and by dealing in ivory,feathers

,hides, etc. They also were well acquainted

with Mashonaland , for they had spent much of theirlife there in hunting. They supplied us with detailedinformation on the nature of the country and itsseparate divisions, and, hearing their account of thefertili ty and the grandeur of the land

,we could not

but feel inclined to becom e Mashonalanders ourselves .Our informants were extremely desirous to fix theirpermanent abode in that land, but for fear of theMatabele shrank from doing so.

“ How is i t then that you are not afraid to huntthere ? ” we asked.

“ Because,”was the reply, Lobengula gave us the

perm ission. We m ay shoot any game except hippopotam i

,for these are looked upon by the Matabele

as sacred animals but live in the country we dare not .But if Mr. Rhodes conquers the Matabele and makesthem subservient to the white man, we wil l all m ove to

THE B OERS ’ IDEAS AB OUT MATABELELAND . 65

that land. It was to be lamented,they sa id , that so

savage a race should have the almost exclusive enj oyment of so beautiful a land : God certainly could not

have intended that region for those barbarians .They wished a quarrel would break out between

Mr. Rhodes and Lobengula,and were prepared to stand

by the former.

“ But then, one of us interrupted “ what is t obecome ofLobengula and his tribe in the event of hisdefeat ? ”

Becom e the white m an’s subjec ts . Or

,Lobengula

can take his tribe across the Zambesi , and possess landthere, whilst we take in Matabeleland . This shouldhave been done long ago !

“ And what do you think,we asked

,changing the

top ic, “of our travel ling on to Mount Hampden ?

Shall we be able to return before the rivers get ful lOh no, never ! they unanimously replied, somewhat

astonished at the quest ion. They thought it folly on

our part to think of doing such a thing,as the Lundi

was already swelling, and was too high for waggonsto pass through it ; but even if we were able to crossit now,

i t would be wholly impassable by the time wewanted to return

,and we would b e obliged to step

at the river for m onths . They told us of a farm erwho, on his way home from Mashonaland , arrived at

the Lundi and found it too high to cross over,so he

had to wait there from Decem ber till May, when at lastthe river became passable. Beside the Lundi therewere other rivers which we would not be able to getacross during the rainy season ; for example, there wasthe Tukwi and Lotsani.


So you think, asked Mr. Venter, “ it is utterlyimpossible for us to proceed to Mount Hampden and

b e back by the end of November?They laughed .

“ If you say‘end of March ,

replied one of them,

“ there is some possibility of yourachieving it

,but end ofNovember —that’s quite out

of the question. And, you must bear in m ind

,that if

you stop long on the banks of a swollen river youwi ll certainly catch fever. No ! don

’t think of goingdeeper inland ! Make this your turning-point and

avai l yourselves of your spare time in hunting, and see

whether you can achieve the honour of shooting someof those fierce lions round about here !We invited the farmers to ourwaggons, and there we

drank to each other’s health, after which they returnedto their waggons . Mr. Venter and I after som edel iberation determ ined to follow the counsel receivedfrom the Boers and to inform Mr. Rhodes of i t. Itproved a blessing— as events will show—that we hadmet those m en.

After supper, as Mr. Rhodes was quietly enj oying a

cigarette and the rest of the party their pipes,my

friend and I subm itted to the Prem ier the final decision to which we had com e. Mr. Rhodes, afterl istening wi th keen interest to what we told him ,

expressed h is appreciation of the information and

advice the Boers had given us, and thanked us for

having consulted them . He ful ly agreed with us,

and added that he had received sim i lar warning fromthe men in the fort. Colonel Pennyfather also

,

though he disliked interfering with our programm e,

expressed his conviction that if we travelled farther

WE GIVE UP OUR PLANS. 6 7

inland our road back would be blocked by both theLundi and the Tuli, perhaps also by the Macloutsie,Lot sani and other smal ler rivers. In the face of suchinformation, the Prem ier acknowledged that it wouldb e an act of wanton folly on our part to shut our earsto the advice given us.

It is true, said he with a sigh,

“our horses and

mules are fat and strong ; we, healthy and in soundSpirits ; our provisions m ore than enough

,

— and it ismost disappointing, after having travelled nearly fourteen hundred m iles and reached a spot within fourhundred m iles of our destination (eight days

’ furtherj ourney), to be compelled to turn back b ut no othercourse is open to us than to do as we have been advisedby SirHenry Loch, SirFrederick Carrington,

ColonelPennyfather and the experienced Boers. Thus

,good

friends,I am decidedly at one with you . We turn

here,we cross the Shashi and the Crocodile, we travel

down the Transvaal are the Blauwb ergen and Zout

pansbergen, pay Oom Paul a visit, and return to Capetown.

”

So said, so done . The hope of seeing Fort Sal isbury

and the Zimb abe ruins was abandoned . We left FortTuli on the 2nd of November, crossed the magnificentShashi

,and travelled through an extensive, picturesque

and most fertile valley abounding with the palm , the

date and the wi ld fig, and form ing part of the disputedterritory between Khama and Lobengula. We crossedthe Tuli once m ore ; here it was some thousands ofyards in breadth, and its shores were densely coveredwith trees and shrubs of various sizes and descript ions, which indicated the presence of wi ld animals.

F 2

6 8 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND.

We were now near to the spot where,a m onth

previously,an old gentleman, a Mr. Vivier—called by

some Bebeyee— was killed by a l ion. The veteranadventurer had met three lions. Two of them he

succeeded in shooting dead ; the third he m ortal lywounded, but before he could again mount his horsethe infuriated injured animal was upon him

,threw him

to the ground, and revenged itself as much as itsdying condition allowed it. Its strength exhaustedfrom loss of blood , the fierce animal fainted and died .

The well-known huntsm an rose, but his limbs wereso mangled that he could not get upon his horse again.

He was lifted on it by some fellow-hunters who hadarrived at the scene, and was brought home and

attended to, but the following day he died. Thus theexpert sportsman, who had lived to see his seventiethyear, fel l a victim to one of those ferocious animals ofwhich he had killed dozens, and of which he hadalways been considered a particularly skilful hunter.

The skin and teeth of that l ion are kept in the campat Tuli .Towards evening we outspanned on the southernborder of the Tuli . We thought of bathing in the

river,b ut its bank was so rough and craggy

, and som any footprints of wi ld anim al s were to b e noticedon the soil, that we gave up our intention.

7 0 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND .

not to feel melancholy and fret about his illness, else hewould certainly die, but that he should keep up hisspirits. Mr. Venter, who had also meanwhile left hiscouch

,brought the patient som e m edicine ; and we

rolled him tightly in blankets so that he m ightperspire well. Nevertheless, we were m uch afraidthat we would lose Solom on

,and we could ill afford

that, not only because he had always proved a faithfuland compe tent servant

,but because we had already lost

two of our boys,Anthony and George . The following

m orning, however, Solomon felt better, though stil l farfrom right. We placed him in waggon No . 3, and

again covered him upwell .But Solomon’s sickness was not the only anxiety we

had to suffer that night . Our dog was continuallybarking, and the cause of it we found out in them orning to have been the presence of hyaenas near ourwaggons ; their freshly-made footprints indicated it.We also discovered that we had outspanned in a narrowbasin-shaped dell surrounded by high, dry hills

’

(hencethe depressing heat during the night), and one whichduring summ er mus t be exceedingly marshy, judgingfrom the black mud-soi l with its deep cracks, in whichdoubtless hundreds of snakes had their abode. All ofus fel t somewhat indisposed that m orning, a proof ofthe unwholesomeness of the c lose air in the vale . And

were it not particularly dry just then, I have no doubtm ore than one of us would have caught fever. One

must b e very careful when travelling in that countryas to the places Ire selects to sleep at ; it is alwayssafest to choose the open veld.

Continuing the j ourney, we passed through a truly

BEA UTIFUL SCENERr. 7 1

lovely tract of country . The fine rivers and val leyswe had to cross ; the trees and shrubs on each side ,with the birds singing beh ind their leafy screens, andwith the pheasants on the ground under them ; the

exquisite beauty of the scenery around us— these,

combined wi th the glorious weather we were enjoyingthat m orning

,rendered the country a paradise. We

met several troops of birds on the wing, of which Mr.

Rhodes shot a few and I one. Water was plentiful .Now and then we passed a straw hut occupied by them ost savage Kafirs. Perhaps, however, we m isjudgedthem— perhaps it was only temporary terror caused byour presence that made them appear so savage

,for the

readermust remem ber that we were still travelling inlawless No-man

’s-land, the disputed territory .

At evening we outspanned on the side of a sm al lstream , where Captain Turner overtook us ; he was toaccompany us to the L impopo

,where we intended to

have a big hunt.At fiv e t he following m orning we set out again

,

our way carrying us through val leys covered wi thtall grass, and with such trees as the palm , the wildcocoa-nut , etc . We could not help adm iring the landand regretting that

,through dread of Lobengula, i t

should be uninhabited. During the whole of the daywe saw only one hut ; and that hut, to be concealedfrom view

,was built underthe cover of some large trees

,

It was a big and neatly-bui lt straw house, and in frontof it there s tood a strongly fenced kraal with a numberof oxen and m ilch-cows in it . Mr. Venter and Iwent to the b ut to ask for m ilk, b ut no sooner had wearrived there when

,as i f at a given signal , a troop of


dogs rushed out towards us, and we had to take to our

heels and run as i f a demon were behind irs .

Mr. Rhodes had meanwhile been shooting pheasants .When he returned he asked us for som e of the m ilkwe had gone to fetch .

What—m ilk ! ” I said.

“ Rather congratulate uson still being alive ! Upon my word, i f we had not

run as though seven evil spirits were at our heels, tornto pieces we certainly would have been by that dogregim ent ! ” Mr. Rhodes did not ask us form ilk again.

Leaving the dog fort, we crossed the majesticCrocodile at seven, and outspanned on the other side ofit on the Transvaal side. The riverthere presentsa peculiarly rom antic picture

,i s about three hundred

yards wide, and runs very deep . Its banks are coveredwith stately trees and j ungle extending about a m ile inwidth . Clear white drift-sand covers the bottom of the

pure,transparent water and the branches ofthe border

ing trees overhang the river’s banks with such symm etry

of form as to m ake i t difficult for the eye-witness to

imagine that man’s hand had not there come to

nature ’s assistance.Judging from the marks in the sand on the river’ssides, thousands of animals must have their home in

the adjoining woods,lions not excluded, for their foot

prints also were to be observed . Large birds re

sembling young ostriches were also to be seen there.

Not long after our arrival on the Boer border,Captain Turner visited the waggons ofMr. Greeff andMr. Leah

,which had been outspanned a short distance

from our own, and shortly afterwards he returned withthe above -mentioned gentlem en, both of whom made a

THE PREMIER ’S INTENTIONS. 7 3

good impression on us. They had considerable know

ledge of both Mashonaland and Matabeleland : Mr.

Greefl'

had spent fifteen years of his li fe in the neighbourhood of Buluwayo. He asserted that the veldstretching for more than two hundred m i les towardsthe Zambesi

,from the Matabele capital, was beauti

fully adapted for cattle and sheep . Mashonaland hedescribed in a word as grand ; he was burning withthe desire to live there

,and he said to Mr. Rhodes in

my presenceTake my word ! if you want m en to -m orrow to

clear that land of the pest that now governs it, myson-in-law and myself will be at your service, and weshal l get another hundred of our Boers to j oin us ;

and, believe m e

,those Doppers who l ive in Zoutpans

berg, Blauwberg and Waterberg, never m iss a shotthree of them are a match for three hundred Kafirs.

All that we desire of you is to grant us farm s and not

to stop us when we fight with the natives . If youagree to that

,Lobengula’s glory will soon be past.

Mr. Greetf spoke so earnestly and so dramatically,that our Prem ier could not keep from laughing.

Yes, Mr. Greeff,”answered Mr. Rhodes

,

“ I shallcertainly some day be pressed to do as you want m e todo, brrt you must remember that I have only the rightto dig gold in that land ; so long, therefore, as theMatabele do not molest my people, I cannot declare waragainst them and deprive them of their country, butas soon as they interfere with our rights I shal l endtheir gam e ; I shal l then ask your aid, and be veryglad to get it, and when all is over I shal l grant farmsto those who assisted me .

”


Yes that is right, replied the Boerwith a nod.

But, added the representative of the CharteredCompany

,nothing prevents you to trek into the land

new. If you wish it , I will give you a perm it to digfor gold there and to choose a farm for yourself to l iveupon, cultivate and keep stock upon. And your farmwi ll always remain yours, whether the Matabele fightornot, and it is sure to become more and more valuableas the white population in the land increases .”

At this announcem ent the two visitors appearedexceedingly pleased. Mr. Greefl

'

term inated the discourse on that subjectWell

,Mr. Rhodes

,you may depend upon it, next

March, when the rainy season will be over, I will trekto that country with all I have

, and I wil l get manyothers to go with m e.

”

We next busied ourselves in di scussing the arrangements to b e made for the “ b ig hunt

”we had so long

been looking forward to. Mr. Greeff, after attentivelylistening to the conversation, remarked that our programm e was not a bad one, but that he could suggesta better. He said that his son-in—law and he haddecided to go out hunting the day after for three days .They intended to take with them an open cart drawnby oxen for carrying the necessary provisions and thegame to be shot . In addition

’

to that, they wouldtake with them four Kafirs, with as m any mules, to

conv ev the m eat which could not go on t he cart. The

course they would take would be down by the sideof the Crocodile until they reached certain largebut shallow pools, In which they were sure to findhippopotam i as well as crocodi les . He was certain

UNDECIDED . 7 5

also that they would meet on their way such animalsas lions

,tigers

,leopards, kwaggas, koodoos, blesbucks,

elks, striped-bucks, etc.“ Come with us !

” he con

cluded, and you wi ll spend a m ost enjoyable t ime.

”

“ Yes, said I, “ your proposal is good , but suppose,

whilst we are out on the hunt one of our horses fai lssay m ine fai ls or lags behind and causes m e to losesight of you

—a thing not at all unlikely—for my

pony is but a lazy beast—what then ?”

Ah,well

,responded Mr. Greeff,

“

you will haveto wait at the spot where you last lost sight ofus til l wereturn on the footm arks ofour animals and find you .

”

N0 ! old friend,said I, that wi ll never do.

Wel l,”he said

,

“ if you don’t wait where you are

when you lose sight of us, you wi l l lose your way

altogether, and, as true as the sun shines,no trace of

you will ever be seen again.

We looked into each other’s eyes with a sm i le and

felt all but inspired with zeal for our enthusiast icfriend

’

s proposed three days ’ hunt. We did not at

once refuse the invitation,but prom ised to consider it ;

and we decided,at the same tim e, to join in a short

chase in the afternoon.


CHAPTER XIII.

We divide our forces—The prospect of a delicious supper—I meetwith some curious wild animal s—An interview wi th crocodiles—The return of our hunter's—An adventure with a tiger

Mr. Greeff tell s an exciting s tory.

WHEN the time arrived the company divided itselfinto two parts ; Mr. Venter

,Mr. Leah and myself

form ing the one, and Mr. Rhodes , Colonel Pennyfeather and Captain Turner the other, the form er tohunt bucks and other of the larger game

, the latter toshoot birds and such of the smal ler gam e as theyshould come across . A third party, consisting ofMessrs . du Breez , Visser, v an Aarde and Joub ert, whohad also outspanned not far from us

,went out hunting .

Each party chose a different direction.

We had not left our waggons long when koodooscame within sight. We now began to ride with greaterspeed ; but Blauwbok, Mr. Venter’s horse, becam e

crippled and could not keep pace with the rest . Igave my disappointed friend my own horse and tookhis. At a slow pace I then followed the rest of theparty. Shot upon shot was soon to be heard, and Ithought in pleased anticipation of the delicious meal Iwas going to eat in the evening. Dim ly I could also


but no sooner had I thrown myself flat to swim whenthere was a loud splash in the water not far from me

it was caused by two crocodiles that had leaped in fromthe shore. A cold thrill ran through my body . Iswam back with all my m ight and ran to Mr. Lange .The reptiles had certainly startled m e m ore than Ithem . However, they were not large animals— aboutfour feet in length

,I should say. Mr. Venter the

next day saw some crocodiles at the same place .At sunset our two hunting parties returned. They

had met with kwaggas, elks and koodoos, they said,but all were so wild that none were shot. Mr. Rhodes

,

however,did not come hom e empty-handed. He

brought with him som e partridges and pheasants .After taking a bath in the river we gathered round

our table and took our evening m eal,Mr. Greefl

'

and

Mr. Leah joining in with us . We had hardly begun,when Messrs . Jcubert, v an Aerde and du Breez passedus by with their sleeves rolled upand their hands redwith blood . These gentlem en had been more suc

cessful than our parties,for they had shot two koodoos

and had come into possession in a very curious m anner

of a large red-buck. A young Kafir, whom they hadleft som e distance behind, heard the scream ing of a

buck . Thinking that one of his masters had woundedi t

,he ran towards the spot whence the sound came.

Arrived at the scene, he was startled to behold a tigerwith its paws upon the breast of the dying buck . Thenegro hesitated for a few seconds whether he wouldflee from or attack the animal . Then, thinking thatit would be a disgrace on his part to allow the tiger toeat what his master had shot, he threw his Iatere

'

THE TIGER AND THE B UCK . 7 9

(s t ick) at the t iger; whereupon the latter, instead of

rushing on its assailant, cowardly gl ided away with itstai l between its legs . Shortly afterwards the hunters

,

on the shouting of the Kafir, came to the spot. We

can imagine how surprised they were at what theyfound . The buck, a large, healthy one, was dead whensecured ; but, save that its neck was bitten through ,no part of its body was destroyed . The story seem edalmost incredible to 11s, but it was proved to be true .Events of that kind are not of rare occurrence in

that part of the world . Only two days previouslyMr. Greeff and Mr. Leah had an adventure with a lion.

Mr. Greeff told us his Kafir ran up to him and toldhim that he had just seen a l ion on the other side ofthe stream eating som ething . The Kafir explained tohim and Mr. Leah where he had seen it, and the twogentlemen took their guns and made for the place.

As they neared the spot the lion roared .

I trembled in my boots, so proceeded Mr. Greeff,

but would not think of turning back before I hadat least made an attempt to overcom e the animal .‘Hendrik

,

’ I whispered to my son-in-law (Leah),‘ b e

ready to shoot him when he comes . ’ Hendrik shiveredno less than I . We now saw the lion and the lion us

,

and so loud a growl it gave that the earth seemed totremble beneath my feet. I took good aim and firedand— good heavens — the lion came ! and all that Ihad tim e to say to Hendrik was,

‘Run,man

,run !

’

And, believe me, my friends, never did I know thatold Greefi

'

could run as fast as he did . Upon m v

word, I ran so hard that fire issued from my eyes .”

At this we al l burst out laughing .


Yes,said Mr. Greeff,

“ it is all very well to laughwhen you sit round the table

,com fortable and safe ;

but if to-morrow in a hunt you m eet the lion,I should

like to see who would laugh then.

”

Mr. Greeff was in earnest, but we could not stoplaughing at his over-graphic account of the event .After a short interval, however, when we were againprepared to give him a qu iet audience

,and when his

exci tem ent had cooled down a bit,he continued the

story.

“ Hendrik and I at last stood still and listened,

but heard nothing. I must have wounded the lionseverely. As it was beginning to get dark we wouldnot return to see what had becom e of our enemy butthe following m orning— that is yesterday—we againwent to the place where we had seen it last, expectingto find i t either dead or wounded . But we saw

nothing except a few blood patches, which show thatthe l ion must have been badly wounded.

”

“ Why did you not go in search of him again ?queried Mr. Venter ; whether dead or alive

, you

certainly would have found him“ I dare say we would, if we had tried, replied

Mr. Greeff. My dog barked in some bushes yesterdayprobably we m ight have m et the lion there

,but I am

never over-anxious to meet a wounded lion, especiallywhen amongst woods. Believe me

,there is nothing

m ore dangerous than a lion hurt. When i t comesdown upon you, all that remains for you is to kill itor die. And I was not going to risk my life, nor wasHendrik his. But, to-morrow, we m ight find the lionon our hunt, perhaps also its mate, for the one i s


Greeff again endeavoured to persuade the party toadopt his proposals. Even I

,who had so ardently

looked forward to the lion and hippopotamus hunt,could not but shake my head at Mr. Greeff

’

s desires ,especial ly as I pictured to myself the situation in

which any of us would find him self when his horseshould fail or he should lose his way ; he must wait,Mr. Greeff had said, till the party returned to him , or

else run the ugly risk of never being seen by man again.

The end of it al l was, that we decided to take up thej ourney the following day. Captain Turner, however,was determ ined not to lose the hunt, so he stayedbehind with Mr. Greeff and Mr. Leah to spend fourdays on the chase . After supper Mr. Greefl

'

and hisson-in-law bade us “ Good-bye, once m ore expressingtheir disappointm ent at our decision. The partingwas mutually regretted, forwe had by that time woneach other’s sincere friendship.

We sent one of the police along wi th the two

gentlem en to fetch us a sheep . We expected him to

return soon again,but he did not turn up at all that

night. This cost us some anxiety, for the night wasdark, and the place s trange, and hence it was not

improbable that he had lost his way. However,he

appeared the next m orning with a fat sheep fromMr. Greeff, and a tin of fresh butter as a present fromthe latter’s wife . Mr. Greefi

'

would accept no paymentfor the sheep from our deputy, remarking

,

“ A t in

of butter and a sheep are little enough to giv e to suchkind people. We

,on the other hand

, could not but

speak in the highest praise of that gentleman, as well

as ofhis son-ih -law.

CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. v an Aarde’

s farm—Too tired to run after koodoos— Adifference about ourjourney, and Mr. Lange has to give wayCrematart River and the trees there.

WE left the m ajestic river at half-past five on the

m orning of the 5 th of November. Our road—one

that I would recommend to those who wi sh to breaktheir necks—wended over hills and through kloofs.We passed the farm ofMr. v an Aarde (the father ofthe young van Aarde we had met at the Limpopo) andentered and outspanned upon an ex tensive and m onotonous-looking plain. There being no water for our

animals, our stoppage was v ery short.As we proceeded, some koodoos crossed the road som e

distance in front of us. We lazily fired at them a shotor two from where we were, but m issed, and we felt t ootired and low- spirited to pursue them . At length,much to our rel ief, we reached the other end of theunvarying plain and ascended a hill, on the slope of

which we were fortunate enough to procure sufficientwater forourselves and our beasts . At sunset we foundourselves on the topof a high elevation, and there westopped to spend the night. Both Mr. Venter and

Mr. Lange, however, were dissatisfied with the site as

G 2


outspan-place ; they wanted the party to proceed toCrematart River before closing the day’s j ourney,because at that river there was plenty ofwater for ouranimals, whereas on the hill there was none. Mr.

Rhodes was opposed to this ; he saw no necessity in our

going farther, inasmuch as we found ourselves on a

safe, com fortable and healthy spot, and as our animalshad already m ore than quenched their thirs t during theafternoon

, and we for ourselves had m ore water withus than we needed . I agreed wi th the Prem ier,though it was to be adm itted that another five m ileswould be no smal l gain to our horses as wel l as toourselves . The otherwise subm i ssive Eppie Lange wasparticularly out of hum our on this occasion —not so

much,I bel ieve, because he was anxious to bring the

horses to the stream ,as because he wanted to be there

himself ; for he was longing for a bath . Anyhow, thedecision had been made, the discontents had to bowto it

,and we passed t he night upon the hill.

The following m orning we drove to Crematart Riverand there outspanned . After breakfast Mr. Vissertook us to a gigantic baobab, the circum ference of thetrunk of which m easured no less than 9 7 feet. Thetree was therefore wide enough to have a way out

out of i t of sufficient breadth to allow four cx

waggons, side by side , to be driven through it. I am

afraid that the reader who has not himself witnessedsuch an enormous tree will find it difficult to realise

the sight . Imagine a tree with a trunk as wide as a

broad street and with branches as thick as the thickest

of trunks we see in the Cape Colony .

We continued our j ourney from there through the


valleys yonder, by the stream s of water close by,by the luxuriant veld around me

,and by the Kafir

towns in the neighbourhood, the time is nigh whenthe white population at the foot of this mount willoutrival you in number !We did not sleep so well that night as we did the

night before, for the airwas somewhat depressing and

not very healthy, owing to the swampiness of thevalley.

CHAPTER XV.

Fascrnating scenery—The RiverNile, so cal led—IVe make anothereffort to buy milk—The Kafirwomen as bad as the dogs— A

delusive hill—The Premier is dissat isfied , but the oxen are

not —A born hunterand his family—Sal t waggons from Zout

pansbergen.

THE following day our road took us through a longkloof. It was not a road that of i tself would al lure a

traveller, i t being so stony and broken that everyone ofus preferred walking to riding

,for no one cared

to share the violent shocks the carts and waggons hadto put up with . The fascinating scenery, however,that the opposite side of the m ountain presented, com

pensated for the inconvenience the road afforded .

Extensive plains, too, at a distance,with here and

there a Kafir town upon them,now appeared to our

v iew,whilst at the same time we spied the dim blue

tops of the Zoutpansb ergen. Passing several Kafirkraals, we reached the RiverNi le —so cal led by theDutch roortrekkers, who bel ieved it to be the source ofthe great Nile. Som e rain having rendered the soilsoft

,the Kafirs were engaged in ploughing m ealies

when we arrived there. Judging by the cultivationcarried on, the Kafirs in the neighbourhood of t he

Little Nile are far more industrious than any of

those we had hitherto met .


Mr. Lange, Mr. Venter and myself drove in our cartto a l ittle town to get som e m i lk where we had observedsome cattle-kraals. Several native women, both old

and young,were just busy milking the cows when

we cam e there,but when they saw us they all

, as i f ata sudden alarm ,

jumped up and ran as swiftly as theycould to their huts

,from where they peeped at us as if

we were a triplet of the basest vagabonds . We stoodstill for a m inute or two calling “ Milk, m i lk !

”and

Ma li, malt money), but the frightened women

only turned a deaf ear to us.

“ Well, go to the

dickens I we thought and drove away.

The waggons had taken a different road from our

cart, but we had agreed to meet each other again at

a watery place called Wittek lip. The cart was aheadof the waggons, and was going at a fair speed, theroad being level and good

,but Wit tek lip was stil l

far from being reached . At length, having drivenwithout stopping for four-and-a-half hours, we caughtsight of a smal l white hill— our apparent dest ination—which seem ed to be only a short distance We

continued the drive another half-hour,but owing to

the surrounding tal l trees, of which the syringa wasthe most prom inent, we soon again lost sigh t of thehill . I became impatient, jumped from the cart

,and

climbed like a cat to the top-of one of the larger

trees , from where i t appeared to m e that we were stil las faraway from the white hill as we had been an hourbefore.

I suggested that we should outspan,for our horses

had already m ade a longer run without stopping thanusual, but Mr. Venter would not hear of it. It was


almost all white men to be met with in that northernregion ofSouth Africa are huntsmen.

Leaving Witteklipwe travelled through fine grassyfields

,on which num erous partridges and korhaans

were to be m et with. Mr. Rhodes again shot som e .Towards evening we unteamed our anim als close to a

large pan containing water. Som e heavy rains havingfal len there som e days before, the veld looked well

,and

we allowed our horses to graze on i t all night.The following m orning we passed the Zoutpans

bergen on our left, and saw a number of Kafir townsand thousands of cattle . In spite of the undulatingcharacter of the country the v eld was open

, and we

could see far in every direction. At a distance of

about 150 yards from the road we passed a vulturelamb-catcher”) sit ting on a tree. Mr. Rhodes fired

a shot at it from the cart and felled it . It was real lypiteous to see the poor bird shrink and fal l . Since theKafirs in that part of the country reared no sheep,lamb-catchers there could do no m ischief. Farther onour way we m et three waggons com ing from Zout

pansberg loaded with salt. We had a short chat withthe Boers on them ,

and inquired from them where theold Mr. Berend Vorster was living. It chanced thatone of them was a son-in-law of that gentleman

, and hekindly directed us to Mr. Vorster’s farm , which happened to b e the place also to which the salt-ladenwaggons were going, though at a less speed than thatat which we were travel ling . Meeting, however, withso m any roads leading to Kafir towns, we very soonturned into a wrong one ; but the m istake was quicklydiscovered. Noticing som e men fishing in a stream

RABEND VORSTER . 9 1

flowing not far from where we were driving , I gotdown from the cart, went to them, and said “ Goodm orning.

”The greeting was returned , though in

a rather gruff manner, by all except one,who cast

a look at m e savage enough to frighten me. Icourteously asked them to show me which way totake for Mr. Vorster’s, and they were good enough todo so. I then returned to the cart ; we got into thecorrect road again, reached the top of a hill

, and

from there we looked down upon the farm of Commandant Berend Vorster. Not little was our joy tosee i t, for it was the first farm we had seen since weleft Mr. Taylor

’s.

92 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND

CHAPTER XVI.

A carriage and four horses—Mr. Barcud Vorster—Mr. Adendorff

and h is concession—A t iresome invitation which has to b e

accepted—“7 c reach Pietersburg, and read sad t idings in thenewspapers—W e do not enjoy our quarters and decide to

leave—Expensive hospitality- \Ve hear more than we desireof the concession.

WE outspanned near to a dwelling-house, and next to a

clear s tream whose sides were sheltered by some prettywi llows . In the garden close by

,surrounded by a

wall,we noticed a number of haystacks

,and so we

knew where to get food for our animals. After takinga bath in a deep pool close to the house

,we purchased

for our horses a quantity of fodder at a cheap rate,but

for ourselves we could obtain neither poultry nor any

other m eat, so we had to have recourse again to our

t inned food . Whilst still at ourm eal, we saw a showycarriage drawn by four smart horses com ing in our

direction. This gaudy sight made i t difficult form e toreal ise that I was sitting in a corner of rude Zoutpansberg. The vehicle stopped at our waggons, and out

sprang Mr. Barcud Vorster, junior, member of the

Volksraad, with his pair of crutches . He at onceinvited us to his father

’s house,but was sorry to tel l

us that his father was not at hom e,being out on

state duty in his capacity of commandant. We


By your people ! he sarcastical ly re turned ; and

who may they be ?Burghers from the Cape Colony , the Transvaal and

the Orange Free State. Already no less than five

hundred South African burghers are employed by theChartered Company, and what i s it to us to add fifteenhundred to that number? It wi ll be a work ofa few

days, especially if we prom ise to distribute farm s, eachthousands of acres large, amongst those who assist ourPremier.

”

Mr. Adendorff sm iled.

“ Yes, he replied, but wehave also a concession there .Indeed and where may that be ?

”

In Banyailand, was the challenging answer.

And from whom did you get i t ?From Chibe

,

” he replied .

From Chibe— so ! And who are the we who

obtained that concession from Chibe ?Mr. Vorster and myself.”

But excuse me if I rem ind you,Mr. Adendorff,that

Chibe is only a captain of smal l significance who paystaxes to Lobengu la and lives in Lobengula’s land .

What right has he to m ake concessions of land not

belonging to him self and already conceded by Lobengula to Mr. Rhodes ? ”

Anyhow,

”was the response, he has done it .

Well,then your concession is of no value, I

rejoined ,“ for Chibe is a subject of Lobengula’s, and

has consequently no right whateverto m ake concessions

of territory to anybody.

The more my Opponent argued in support of his

c laim the more manifest became its invalidi ty.

THE LANDA U DEPARTS. 95

But,he remarked

,

“ there is no obstacle in your

way ; Mr. Rhodes can buy our concession.

“ Why then,

” I asked,

“ don’t you show him yourconcession ? If it is legitimate, he is sure to buy it.

”

But the whole talk went to show that the so

called concession was worth very little, i f anythingat all . We dropped the topic and spoke on other

matters.Many

'

Kafirs were to be seen about the place. In

deed, one meets with swarm s of them and their cattleall over the Zoutpansberg district.At three o’clock in the afternoonMessrs. Vorster and

Adendorfl’

took leave of us. They warmly invited thePrem ier to get into their landau and drive with themto Pietersburg

,but the honourable gentleman had no

inclination to do so. However, he was not let off

before he had given his word that he would visitThorncastle, the residence ofMr. Vorster

,junior

,the

following Monday, and pass the night there . Thefishermen whom I hadm et at the rivulet had alreadyleft when the gay four-wheeler with its spirited steedsstarted for Thorncastle

,a distance of forty m iles from

there, which had s til l to be covered before nigh t.We next said good-bye to the hospitable Mrs. Vorsterand her children,

who gave us a small bag fi lled withcake to eat on our way, and then we left.Our road now passed alongside a verdant valley in

which som e gardens had been laid out , and there werealso some small shops kept by Jews, who seem ed tocarry on a thriving business. Their customers are

Kafirs for the greater part—and the Kafirs of that district were not poor

,as many of them had been labourers


a t the gold or diamond m ines . I learnt from goodauthority that the amount they contributed as annualtaxes to the Transvaal treasury was very considerable .

On our way we passed hundreds of bush -doves thatwere enj oying themselves on the patches of cultivatedland , the harvests ofwhich had just beenm own. The

Prem ier and the colonel each shot a number of them .

We halted in front of one of the Jewish shops andbought som e necessaries—oatsheav es and m ealies forour horses

, and a piece of mutton for ourselves ; andthe generous shop-keeper presented us wi th a bucketofpotatoes into the bargain.

Towards the close of the day we outspanned next toa stream running between two Kafirtowns. As the sunhad not yet set , we

'

b egan target-shooting as a pastim e

at antheaps on the other side of the valley, at distancesroughly estimated by us to range from 500 to 1000yards . We had not been firing long when an amusingincident , but one which m ight have been serious, tookplace. A Kafir

,who had apparently taken no notice

ofour shooting,came striding along through our target

area as if he were m onarch of all he surveyed ; butdidn’t he startle and run when just a little in frontof him a bullet sent up dust ! His legs could never

have carried him off faster than they did then.

Continuing our j ourney from there the fol lowingday, we passed through several Kafir towns , in and

round about which thousands ofcows and oxenwere to b e

seen but,owing to the dryness of the veld and to the

imm ense number of cattle that had to live on it, theywere far from fat .At half-past twelve we outspanned within four m iles

9 8 WITII RIIODES IN MASHONALAND.

s ince the Prem ier had promised to touch at that place,it was only his duty to keep his word. Besides, Mr.

Vorster i s not a man of insignificance ; he is lookedupon as the leading m an in Zoutpansberg and, as

I have already stated, represents that district in theVolksraad. Two days previously he invited us so

warm ly to his place that we thought we would greatlydisappoint him if we did not accept the invitation, andwhen we observed on our arrival at Thorncast le a

very large gathering to meet us, We naturally expectedthat there was grand entertainm ent awaiting us ; butwhen the day was over and we crept into ourwaggonsat ten at night, we saw that all the fuss that hadbeen made was a m ere farce, and that our going toThorncastle was only waste of time.Early the next m orning we inspanned and left.

The inmates of the house were al l st il l sound asleep .

Not knowing whether our Thorncast le host wouldaccept m oney or not for the forage our horses and muleshad consumed at his place, we left Bandmaster behindwith a horse to wait until that gentleman was up and

then to ask him what our expenses were. We prom isedthe boy that we would wai t for him at Sm itsdorp, one

and a half hour’s ride from Thorncastle. Shortly afterour departure Mr. Vors ter got out of b ed

,and Band

master did as he had been bidden—asked what hehad to pay.

One pound formeal ies was the answer, and one

shilling for every oatsheaf.Bandmaster paid the m oney

,m ounted his horse

and rode away . Before he did so,however

, Mr,

Vorster remarked to him

WE DO NOT WAIT FOR VORSTER. 99

I wi ll follow you later, for I should like to see Mr.

Rhodes about something.

”

We had only been three-quarters of an hour on the

way when Bandmaster overtook us and inform ed us

what he had been made to pay. NVe were shocked a t

hearing the charges, for, since we had entered Zout

pansberg we never had to pay m ore than 1 7 s. for a bagofcorn in fact, we had m ore than once only paid 133and the price of oatsheav es never exceeded 9d. the

piece ; we had sometim es only paid 6d. The o therpiece of news that Bandmaster brought with him

,

namely, that it was Mr. Vorster’s intention to overtakeus again,

was not received with any greater pleasureso little

,in fact, that we immediately ordered the

drivers to drive faster. They obeyed,and we no .v

went at a rate of six m i les an hour 0 11 a level road .

We had m ore than one reason for being eager to ge taway. In the first place, we had already grown verytired ofMessrs . Vorsterand Adendorff’s pers istent pleading that Mr. Rhodes should purchase their so-cal ledBanyailand Concession, and we longed for an end to it .

Secondly, disappointed in the entertainm ent we hadreceived at Thorncastle, and regretting the loss of tim e

consequent on the visit, the fartherwe were away fromthat place the happier we felt ; and, thirdly, we hadbeen asked by Mr. Kirsten to take breakfast with himat Sm itsdorp that morning, and we were anxious toconform to the request.We passed through Marabastad without stopping in

it longer than a few m inutes . It is a new villagesituated on the roadway , and i s furnished with a verydecent hotel . As we were approaching Marabastad,

II 2


we caught sight in the distance of a v ehicle followingour track . At once we suspected that itwas the landauof Mr. Vorster, and we were not wrong. Notwith

standing the accelerated Speed at which we weretravelling, the showy carriage soon overtook us .Messrs . Vorsterand Adendorfl

'

were again its occupants,and they immediately upon reaching us invited Mr.

Rhodes and myself to take seats in their carriage.

Although already sick of hearing of their supposedconcession which they so pressingly besought Mr.

Rhodes to purchase, for politeness’ sake we compl ied

with the request .


Mr. Rhodes’

s exam ination the papers he had receivedfrom the Banyai chief relating to the concession,

the Prem ierwould, i f he found the concession in anyway valid, pay its value to the concessionaires . Withthis prom ise Mr. Vorster appeared satisfied.

NVe had our waggons inspanned and were on the

point of starting again when the kind Mrs. Kirstenwho, by the way, is a daughter ofMr. Albert BiccardofKoeb erg

— asked us to wait a l ittle and have lunchthere before leaving. The request was gladly accepted ,and to our surprise we found that not a lunch ,

b ut a

big dinner,had been prepared for us in true South

African style. The wel l-roasted fat ducks and thepure Cape wine were much enj oyed it was the secondtim e that day we ate a m eal better than we had

enj oyed formany days before .At two o ’clock in the afternoon we bade our kind

host and hostess farewell , as also Mr. Vorster and his

companion, and left Smitsdorp. Our road now ran

over a pretty tract of country—water cepions and theveld green. But the gram inivorous animal s to be seen

there were all in a'

poor condition owing to the grassbeing sour and ofan inferior quality.

At sunset we arrived at Makapaan’

s Poort gateof Mak apaan), a place lying about thirty m iles fromSm itsdorp, and of considerable historical interest,many a tough fight having been fought there betweenthe Mak apaan Kafirs and the Boers under Potgieter.Thousands of Kafirs were here to b e met with, and

we could descry num erous towns’

of theirs in the imm ediate neighbourhood . Not far from the Poort thereis to be seen a. large deep cave, into which , during

MAA’APAAN‘

S P OORT. 103

the war against the Boers, thousands of Kafirs fled tosave their l ives ; but this the ir whi te enemy discovered, who thereupon placed a body of m en at them outh of the cavern to prevent any of those insidefrom escaping. The thus imprisoned natives preferreddeath to surrender, probably because they thought thatsurrender only m eant death (having l ittle reason tohope formercy after having in cold blood butchered somany Boer fam i lies), and that it would be m ore heroicto voluntarily perish by starvation than die directly bythe hands of their foes . As it was, every one inside thecave died ofhunger, and the bones of those unfortunatecreatures are still on view there .We left Makapaan

’

s Poort the following m orning,and after untearning our horses for a short while on

the way, we went on til l we had climbed up an elevation. On the top of i t we outspanned and spentthe night. Next m orning we j ourneyed to KleinNij lstroorn,

where the1 e was the station of a Hernhutter m issionary. He had a fine orange orcha1d

,

which,however, was of no use to us, for oranges were

then out ofseason.

The next place we halted at was the “ Groot Nrj l .Upon the waters of that river myriads of waterfowlwere to be seen, whilst in the grass upon i ts shores anumber of owl s sat looking on. Towards night weoutspanned in the open veld and slept there. Thefollowing day we drove through Potgieter

’

s Rust,in

t he Waterberg dis trict, a newly marked- off townshipwith wide borders, but consisting at present of only

a few buildings. The vil lage gets its water supplyfrom the Transvaal Nile. The soi l i s fertile, but the

104 WITH RIIODES IN MASHONALAND .

grass 1s unwholesom e for cattle. Fruit trees thrivethere when spared by hai l and frost. There was a

time when the population of the place was far largerthan at present, but owing to frequent outbreaks of

fevermany of the residents abandoned it. Now, how

ever, the number of i ts inhabitants is again on the

increase . A church has been built, and the congre

gat ion support their own clergyman. But it is myopinion that the people now living there will, as soonas they may safely do so, trek to Mashonaland . O ldpomegranate and other hedges, as wel l as some largesyringas and sim ilar trees

,rem ained as relics of the

earl ier village,but those who had planted them had

almost al l either died of fever or trekked to healthierplaces .Continuing our course, we arrived towards evening ,

after crossing som e hill s and val leys, at the farm

of Messrs . Nadab and Thompson,a place that for

many years had been held in the possession ofBoers,

and which only recently fell into the hands of theabove-mentioned Uitlander gentlem en. The old Boerdwelling-house

, with its thick solid walls, stands theres till, but some new buildings , one of which serves as ashop

,have been added. These houses, together wi th

the various kinds of trees surrounding them,present a

pretty picture . We passed the night t here, as did

also a large num ber of Kafirs who were en route to the

goldfields. These m en kept them sel ves remarkablyquie t that night : they sat around the fires they hadkindled not far from our waggons, and, though therewere about a hundred of them, they hardly madethem selves as much as heard . Early the following


CHAPTER XVIII.

hurry to reach Pretoria—An officer m eets us with an in

v itat ion—We enter in procession, and sleep , after two m onths’

travelling, under a roof—Nelmapius gives m e a headache in

Pretoria—The gold mines of Johannesburg—I am treateddiscourteously by a post-oflicc clerk at Kimberley—Home at

Capetown once more.

NVE arrived towards evening at a large river the nameof which has escaped my m emory— and after crossinga bridge we outspanned on the other side ofthe stream .

It was quite a treat to m ee t there with such a mass ofwater in so dry a season. Owing to heavy rains thathad fal len the previous day, the river had come downin a tremendous torrent and fi lled up every neck in itsbed that had been empty and dry before .The next day we had to dri ve through a heavy

,

muddy road that m ade our poor animal s spend no

smal l am ount of energy. But,slowly though they

dragged the vehicles along, they did so stead ily ; andthe Prem ier rather l iked this tardy travelling

,because

he was by no m eans eager t o reach Pretoria before latein the evening or early the next m orning. He wishedto escape any of that formal ado that men in his

position m ight reasonably expect on arriving in such atown. At ten in the m orning, however, we were met

by a m ilitary emeer on horseback who rode up to our

ENTRY INTO PRETORIA. 107

front waggon (the one in which Mr. Rhodes happenedto sit), requested the driver to step , and asked

Are these the waggons of President Rhodes ? ”

Yes, repl ied the dri ver.

And where is the President ?“ Well

,

”answered the Prem ier, “ 1 am Rhodes

is there anything I can do for you ?The officer drew a sealed letter from his pocket and

handed it to the Cape “ President.” It conta ined an

invi tation t o him and his company to be the guestsof t he Transvaal Government during their stay at

Pretoria, and stated also that the necessary arrangem ents for the reception of the party had been made atthe Fountain Hotel . The officer also wished to knowa t what t im e Mr. Rhodes expected to enter Pretoria,for the President intended to m eet him on the way.

About six o’clock,

”repl ied the Prem ier.

“ Good-bye !” said the efi cer

,and off he rode as

hard as Ire could. Other riders with fresh horses wereplaced on the road between us and Pretoria to relieveeach other and so bring the news to President Krugeras soon as possible.

We outspanned next on the borders of a prettystream , took a bath in the refreshing water, and

trimmed oursel ves up a b it,in anticipation of our

entrance seen into the capital of the Transvaal .At fiv e o

’

clock the State carriages , containing theHonourable Messrs . Bok , \Volm arans

,and Dr. Krause

(m embers of the Government), followed by a numberof other v ehicles carrying many of the leading ladiesand gentlem en of Pretoria

,cam e to bid us welcome

near Wonderboom,about hal f an hour’s drive from


the ci ty . Having greeted each other, we took seats,at the request of the Government members, in theircarriages .At half—past five we arrived at our hotel , in front of

which a large crowd of people had assembled, who, as

the Cape Prem ier alighted from his carriage, hailed himwith three loud and hearty cheers. Capital accommo

dation was furnished us ; our horses,too

,were wel l

prov ided for,and in every respect we had good reason

to be pleased with the hospitality which we received atthe hands of the executive. We would now

,for the

firs t time in nearly two months,sleep inside a house .

We received visitors from all quarters that night.Am ongst others there was Mr. Hennie Hofm eijr (sonofMr. S . V. Hofm eijr ofCapetown), wi th whom I had a

long and very pleasant chat. Little did I then thinkthat only a month later I would learn of his death .

That fatal fever that had carried off so m any of myyoung friends, am ong others Judge Jorrison, Dr. Davisand Dr. Wessels, al so bore away the kind, gentleHennie Hofmeijr at the age of twenty-five.

We learnt at Pretoria that two days after we hadcrossed the Limpopo the river came down in a powerfulstream , and that it was stil l quite impassable bywaggons, and daily growing higher. We could thereforecongratu late ourselves on having hearkened to thecounsel we had received from the Boers at Tuli ; hadwe acted contrary to their advice we would have beencompelled to wai t at leas t three m onths at the Limpopoif not at another river before we cam e to t he

Limpopo— ere we could cross it.I arose the following m orning wi th a shocking head

”0 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND .

\Ve hailed the dawn of day with delight, and theclock had hardly struck six when we arrived in Jcharrnesburg. Mr. Rhodes had been expected there theprevious night

,but had purposely delayed his entering

into the town in order to escape a publ ic demonstration.

Everyone was still indoors and al l was quiet when we

rode into the Golden City. We m ade direct for thebuildings of the Gold Fields of South AfricaCompany, where we took up our quarters .The distance between Pietersburg and Johannesburg

is 2 11 m iles .After v isiting the gol d m ines, we left Johannesburg

per coach for Kimberley on the 20 th ofNovember,and

had as travelling companions the Rev . Mr. Postma of

Pretoria and Mr. Hofmann, the Raad-member forBloemhof. Both were men very pleasant to associatewith

, and in their company our long coach-j ourneyto the Diam ond City appeared a great deal shortert han it really was. We arrived at Kimberley in two

days . The Prem ier there gave us a parting dinner,

as we had now practical ly come to the end of our

j ourney, and the evening was spent in a very pleasantm anner. At a quarter to nine Mr. Venter and theRev . Mr. Postma bade us farewel l and left Kimberleyby train at nine o

’clock.

The next m orning (Sunday)I went to the post-office—only open from eight til l nine on the Sabbath— toinquire for letters, for before leaving Fort Tuli Idirec ted the post officials there to forward to Kimberley

all letters and papers which should arrive for m e.

Mr. Jan Lange, had advised m e to see that I wasat the post -office exact lv at eight o

’

clock,because there

I AM ILL-TREATED . 111

was generally such a crush that those who cam e therelater had frequently to turn back empty-handed, without even having had nu opportunity of asking for theirletters . I therefore took care to be early at the officedoor. Seen a large crowd had assembled on t he step.

Exactly at eight the door flew Open and the big Irishman

, O’

Leary, pressed h is heavy body past m e and

was immediately handed his letters . I then askedfor m ine, but the post official made m e no reply— infact

,took no notice at all ofm e. The whole room was

soon crammed with people, and one after anotherwasserved ; but I, who was the second to be there, hadonly to look on. I became impatient. In the firstplace, I could not afford to lose so much time

,for

every m inu te that morning was valuable to m e ; and,

in the second place , my heart was burning to havetidings:from hom e. I asked the clerk why he wouldnot attend to me

,but the young fellow again pretended

not to hear. Again I asked him the reason for hiscoudriet

,and inquired whether he wanted my name.

“ Yes,

”he gruffly answered .

I gave him my full name and address,but it availed

m e nothing. Hi therto, I had kept calm ,for I fel t

ratherdespondent that m orning, but after I had waitedhalf-an-hour

,and had seen a number of niggers served

before me,I approached the uncivil twenty-two-

yeare

old official , and sternly addressed himPostmaster, why don

’t you attend to m e ? Fromthe outset I have been standing here , and I

’ve seenyou serve scores of niggers, but m e

,a stranger, you

entirely ignore, and treat as you would not treat a

Hotterrtot. Tel l me, what do you m ean? ”


N0 answer.

Clerk, wil l you serve me or not I asked for thelast time .

“ No I he hurled at me.

Good ! I uttered. I jumped into a cab and rodeoff to the Kimberley Club to find som eone to get m v

letters for me. Luckily I m et Mr. Rhodes there, towhom I communicated my disappointment . He im

mediately got into the cab with me. and togetherwe rode to the pest-ofiiee. Very courteously thePrem ier asked the clerk whether there were any lettersforme.

No reply .

Again Mr. Rhodes put the question, but all theanswer he received was a contemptuous look .

Clerk said the Prem ier sternly, I am Rhodes

Will you answer m e immediately ? ”

“ Yes, sir!” the unmannerly clerk replied

,greatly

scared . He then fidgeted about from one corner of

the room to another,but could find no letter for me.

I turned back fairly out of humour, for I knew theremust be letters for m e, having had a telegram to

that efi’

ect . Net contented,I went to Mr. Jan Lange,

and he and I, after breakfast, went to the generalpostmaster, to whom my fri end u

communicated thewhole affair. The kind postm aster immediately wentto the office to make inquiry, and on his return wasable to inform us that all letters addressed to me

had been forwarded to Dr. Harris at the office of theB . S. A. Company.

“fell,” said I

,

“ ifyour clerk had only told us that,

all would have been right ; but, instead of doing so, he

P A R T I I.

O U R SEC ON’

D T R IP .

CHAPTER I.

Introduction—We leave Cape Town for Port ElizabethPremier shuns a public demonstration—The m osquito in

Durban—On board sh ip—Beet les as company—Mr. Rhodesdoes not mind them , b ut I do, and crack my crown in con

sequence.

LAST year 1 related in the Zuid Afrikaansche Tydsehrzft the j ourney Mr. Rhodes

,Mr. Venter and m yself

had made into the interior towards the latter end of theprevious year Encouraged by the numerousreaders , and the satisfactory amount of apprec iationthe account received, I new propose describing brieflyt he trip we have just made to Mashonaland, aid theEast Coast, and trust that the description wi ll notprove uninteresting .

To our regret, Mr. M. M. Venter, our fel low-travelleron our previous trip, could not accompany us thist ime.

Mr. Rhodes, Major Johnson and I left Capetown


by train for Port Elizabeth on the 14th of September, 1891 , and reached it the following evening .

Desirous of bidding the Prem ier welcome in theirm idst, the Port-Elizabethans had prepared to raise a

great to-do on his com ing but Mr. Rhodes, who nevercherished any l iking for ceremonial s (much as he

may have appreciated the honour the Bay-people werewi ll ing to show him), immediately after his arrival atthe port made for the wharf, where he got into a boatand rowed to the Drummond Castle, wh ich was waitingfor us in the b ay. I

,however, rem ained behind

,

waiting for Tonie,who had been left in charge of the

luggage, and without whom ,therefore

, we could not

proceed. He soon turned up, and t ogether we left bytug for the Drummond. All was now ready for thevoyage, and, as twi light set in, we said farewell tothe b ay.

The following m orning we found ourselves in the

haven at East London. We sailed up the BuffaloRiver, and much enj oyed the pretty scenery on i tsbanks. At one o

’clock we had lunch in the courtroom . Some speeches were there del ivered, and a not

unpleasant afternoon was spent.Towards evening we left for Durban

,Natal, where

we arrived the following evening. Our horses, carts,and all our luggage had here to be transhipped tothe Norseman, with which boat we were, two daysafterwards, to continue our northward voyage.

We spent the night at the Durban Club . The roomallotted to me was a large, well-furnished one, butthe b ed was very uncom fortable, and the mosquitoestormented m e so mercilessly throughout the night


returning to Durban, where we embarked in the Norseman in the afternoon. At hal f-past five, in weatherclear and cool and on a sea beautifully calm , our vesselsteamed out of the Durban harbour. Smal l thoughthe Norseman is, she i s a very com fortable boat

, and

our horses as well as ourselves were very wellaccomm odated . We had on board five ponies and a

Cape-cart transported from Cape Town, a number of

cart-horses bought in-Natal, and some pretty dogs,which Maj or Johnson had managed to secure at

Durban.

It was not ti ll ten o’clock that I entered my

cabin. Lighting my candle, I was struck with horrorat the sight of a host of blackbeetles creeping on mybed and up and down the iron

‘

wall . For the m omentI sadly regretted that I had undertaken the journey.

Goodness I said to myself, as I stood there shiveringat what I was seeing, what if these disgusting insectsrun upmy nose to-night, or my ears, or my m outh !And it was ten to one that they would, I thought.N0 1 I said to mysel f, th is wil l never do And

off to the steward I went .My dear man, I sai d to him,

“ in that cabin of

m ine it is impossible to sleep ; it swarm s with al l

k inds of dirty l ittle insects. I want to sleep on deck ! ”

No, sir,”replied the steward, you cannot do that,

because the deck wil l have to b e scrubbed at four

te-merrow m orning. Besides , sir, why should you b e

afraid of those harm less little beetles ? They won’tdisturb your rest—I’m sure they won

’t.”

Nothing was left but to subject myself to his

advice and betake myself again to the beetle-infested

AMA TONGALAND. 121

cabin. It was wi th great reluctance , however, that Idid so. But when once I threw my t ired body on

my couch I sank so fast asleep that I forgot al l

about the unclean creatures that surrounded m e unti lI awoke in the morning, having, after all, enjoyed a

very pleasant repose.

The views of the Zululand coas t we had next dayfrom our vessel were very beautiful , and by m eans ofour telescopes we could every new and then d

'

st inct lyobserve naked natives on the shore

,as well as several

litt le fires .We passed St. Lucia -Bav , a pretty inlet a l it tle tothe south of St . Lucia Lake. Two fairly large rivers

,

which unite som e ten m iles from theirm outh, emptythem selves into it . The combined rivers are abouthalf a m i le in wid th . St . Lucia Lake is forty-twom i les long and t en bread. I was told that thousandsof water-fowl dwell upon it, and that these birds areseldom disturbed by the gun, for very few white m en

have as yet visited that part of South Africa.

At noon we passed the coast of Am atongaland, one

of the very few countries in South Africa hitherto um

claim ed b y the European,aleand its inhabitants are the

only native tribe in South Africa, excepting Majaatje’

s

people in the Zoutpansbergen, who are governed by aqueen. This queen (Sambele) entered into an agreement with Natal in 1888 that

,if ever by force of

circumstances she should be compelled to del iver up

her country, she would give it to that colony . It wasfrom this treaty (drawn up by Mr. Moffat) that Sir

Amatongaland has recently ( 1895) been proclaimed Britishterritor

'

y. Tr'

arrsla ter.


Hercules Robinson copied the greater part of the treatyhe made with Lobengula .

At two o ’clock the Norseman passed Sandwana

Bay. It was here that Mr. Jesse Cooper obtained theconcession from Sambele. Shortly after the concessionCooper attempted to float a company in England to

build a rai lway through Amatongaland to Transvaal ,but failed.

It was again wi th great unwill ingness that I betookmyself to my cabin the se cond night, the m ore so

because the weather was not nearly so cool and freshas it had been the night before. Mr. Rhodes was lyingin the cab in opposite to m ine, the door ofwhich wasopen, and I asked him how he liked the beetles .Well, answered he, with a sigh,

“ I cannot say Ilike them , but, as I have had many a worse tim e thanthis in my life, I don

’t worry myself much about suchm inor discom forts .

”

That I can understand, I replied .

“When I wasa young man of twenty

, and was travelling by cartthrough the Karoo to the Free State and Transvaal

,

one morning, on waking , I found two scorpions in my

blanket ; but then I slept in the open veld and paidnothing formy bed. Here i t is otherwise .

”

Oh,mygood friend,

”responded the Prem ier, take

the world as i t is ! Was it not your own choice totravel by way of the East Coast ? ”

So it was. Well,I had to be content . As i t was

Oppressively warm I dressed m yself very lightly, butthis only gave those detestable li ttle creatures a

better opportunity of annoying me,and

,abou t mid

night, I was startled by some of them taking a


CHAPTER II .

Still in the Norseman—Arrive at Delagoa Bay—The cha

racter of the Portuguese residents—Why Delagoa Bay is

unheal thy—Back to our berth s—Beetles preferable to dirt-The m anoeuvres of our pi lot—An awkward predicamentA t Inhambane—W e hire Kafir boys

,but the Governor dis

approves—The Premierwaxeth wrathful and gains his point .

ON Tuesday, the 22ud, we passed Inyack , a richlyweeded island a little outs ide Delagoa Bay, and lyingalm ost on the sam e lat i tude as Lourenco Marques

(conrmonly known as Delagoa Bay). It. i s six m ileslong and three broad, but, large as it is

,i s inhabited

only by a few Kafirs.

At eigh t o’

c lock the Norseman steam ed into DelagoaBay, one of the fines t natural harbours I ever saw ;

but what a pi ty that it is in the hands of so retrogressivea people as the Portuguese ! The Bay i s generally assm ooth as a m irror ; and in no harbour can a sh ipl ie with greater ease and safety . We went on shore

,

where we were met by Dr. Summ ershield, who tookus to the Portuguese port, Leurenco Marques, a townestablished new for alm ost four centuries . There weremany things there that drew my attention—not things

,

however, ofwhich I can speak in glowing term s . Traml ines are laid in the s treets, but no trams run on them .

A PESTILENTIAL HOLE ! 125

Pavements there are,but too narrow for two persons

to walk side by side ; and to walk in the street m eansto plough in it, for it consists of loose sand from one

end to the other, and i t is not less broken and fil thythan it is sandy .

*

We were invited to the house of the British Consul ,and there we had som ething to drink . The Consulh im self i s a pale, sick - looking gentleman ; in fact,he looks no better

,as far as his heal th is concerned ,

than t he Portuguese.

At eleven o’clock Dr. Summershield had three horsessaddled— one for the Prem ier, one for h imsel f, and one

forme —and bade us ride with him t o his residence ,“ Polona,

” situated upon an elevation stretching into

the sea. We rode through the town at a slow pace,but when we reached its outskirts the Doctor saidto us,

“ Now strike your horses hard and hold yourbreathAs he gave this order he struck his horse and rode

offat full gal lop . Mysterious to us though this actionof his was, we followed. And we had not proceeded farbefore we m ore than discovered why we had to do so

we had to pass through an atmosphere of the viles tkind

,ari sing from fi lth that for many success ive years

—successive centuries, perhaps— had been depositedthere and been al lowed to accumulate. Such a nasty,unhealthy vapour hangs over the place as no humanbeing can bear—unless he has lost all sense of smell .Well, no soonerwere our noses attacked by this foul

Since the above was writ ten Delagoa Bay has been much

improved .


air than we made our horses go as though our l ivesdepended on our flight, and we inhaled as l ittle of

the air as our lungs could do with, until we foundourselves beyond the l im its of the stench . I new

no longerwondered why it was that Delagoa Bay wasso unhealthy

,so fever-producing . Any place in the

world would be unhealthy if its inhabitant s did withtheir refuse as the Portuguese at Delagoa deal wi ththeirs.If it was m iserable to b e within the precincts of the

town, i t was glorious to be outside of them—at Polona .

The owner of this pretty place had a fine garden,containing fruit-trees of various kinds, such as thebanana, the cocoa-nut , the peach, the orange and thepine-apple ; and, as for vegetables

,he was provided

with m ore than he needed . His dwelling-house was,com paratively speaking, a large and very accommo

dating building. He had two housemaids, both Kafirgirl s . A cousin of his was staying with him to see tothe garden, but this gentleman assured us he was not

going to step there much longer, as he had a lreadyhad the fever twi ce, and was certain he would succumbto i t i f he got it a third time. To my m ind, thesooner he quitted Delagoa Bay the better, for healready looked m iserably pale.Lourenco Marques is, stated briefly and m ildly,smal l and ugly. Its population amounts to aboutfive thousand ; its buildings for the greater part arecoloured blue, and the appearance of i ts inhabitantswould excite the pi ty of any feel ing man. Sickly,pale

,ugly they look, almost wi thout exception

,and

,

on account of the glaring rays of the sun and the


He cam e on deck and took ov er the command ofthevessel , whilst his two black assistant s remained in thelittle boat and connected it by a rope to the stern of

the ship wi th ev ident joy, because this would savethem the trouble of rowing their boat back to theland. They lit their pipes, seated them selves, and

seemed to have e verything to their heart’s content .But hardly had the Norseman begun to m ove on

‘

whenthe boat behind began to pitch and toss m ost dreadfully over the foam ing waves . The amusing sight wagreeted by rears of laughter from our deck . Up wentthe boat to the top of a billow

,then splash~—down

again ! The niggers had an awful tim e of i t. All theycould do was to bale out the waterwith the one handand cl ing to the beat with the other. But theirposition grew every mom ent m ore perilous ; the boatbegan to leak, the inflow of the water was twice as

great as the outpour, and the beatmen were as wet as

fish . Greatly alarm ed,they new began shouting at

t he top of their v oices for their skipper (our pilot) tocome to their assistance. The latter

,on hearing the

cry of his boys, imm ediately ran to the stern, and,

seeing the pl ight they were in, threw a butcher’s

knife into the boat. At once the Kafirs cut the ropethey had t ied to the v essel, and were relieved fromtheir awkward predicam ent . Soon the sai ls were set ,

and the boa t was steered to Pig Island . The Norsemanmeanwhrle passed b oth Pig and Rat, two densely

wooded, picturesque l ittle islands with a fewKafirhuts

on them .

Inhambane Bay rs about thirteen m i les broad and

nineteen and a half long.

A D OWN- GRADE RA CE. 129

At eleven o’

clock we threw out our anchor,and

soon afterwards a small boat carried us to theshore, a very short distance from the ship . The firstthing that struck us when we entered the ' l ittlePortuguese town was the deteriorated stage—generallyspeaking— to which its inhabitants had sunk . The

Portuguese section of the population reside in thecentral part of the town they are supposed to be thewhites of the place

,but are, in fact, not white at al l,

their colour corresponding with that of the colouredpeople of Capetown ; the latter, however, are m ore

c ivilized. Not only are these Portuguese ugly, th in,weak and narrow-shouldered

,but

,judging from the

little I saw of them,they have fal len to such a low

grade of anim al life,that I would be asham ed to

describe theirmode of l iving.

The natives dwell in the outskirts of the town

and in the neighbourhood in huts shaded by the

b ranches of the fig,the palm , the date, and other

subtropical fruit-trees,some of which are very tal l ;

the cocoanut - palm ,for instance

,m easuring from

eighty to ninety feet in height. In order to climbthe tree to pick its fruit, steps, about two feet apart ,are cut into the stem . The tree is thin below,thick in the m iddle, and, like the ordinary palm ,

has a crown at the top, whilst between the crown and

the ground it is perfectly naked . \Ve had som e dozensof cocoa-nuts picked for us, i t being fortunately justthen the season for them . One does not knowwhat a

delicious flavour that fruit has until he has tasted itfresh from the tree .To see the police and the military in the town

K

130 m m RHODES IN MASHONALAND.

is enough to m ake one laugh his tears out of h is eyes .They are

,indeed , a m iserable-looking lot ! And yet

they have their own Governor,and, what is m ore, their

own music-band and we had the honour of hearingthat band play . Didn’t it amuse usAt Delagoa Baywe had been told that Inhambane, as

far as the landscape was concerned, was a lovely place,but I had no idea that it was such a grandly picturesqueSpot as I new found it . The blue

,calui bay, the wild

tree gardens stretching inland from its shores, the

charm ing scenery around— all combine to form a

picture which no human eye can fail to adm ire . Thebay itself, like that of Delagoa, contains a m agnificentnatural harbour. The country round about the l ittletown excellently suits fruit-trees of various kinds .One has only to cultivate it— something the Portu

guese will be the last to do. Lack of energy, lackof ambition,

not to m ention lack of cleanl iness,are characteristic defec ts of the Portuguese, takenon the whole, on the East Coast. No wonder theirforefathers, after whom they take, sailed past suchplaces as Capetown, Port Elizabe th , East London

and Durban—these places needed toil and m oney ifthey were to be turned into decent landings— and

s teered upthe east coast to Inhambane, Chiluan, Sofala

(Pungwe), Zambezi and Quilimane, where hardly a

penny had to b e spent on harbours, andwhere frui t couldbe abundantly picked wi thout previously planting thetrees . We m ay thank Providence that our southern

shores did not offersufficient inducement to the Portu

guese to b e retained by them , but that they fel l intothe hands of the Dutch, who began to lay out pretty

132 WITH RIIODES IN MASHONALAND .

young men. One of them,Matokwa, was the cook of

an English Agent there who, thinking that his wife

(a Portuguese woman) could il l afford to lose theservices of the boy, refused to let him go. On the

lady being consulted, however, she consented to the

boy leaving her. He j oined the rest, and very cheerfully the fifteen went on board.

But,to our annoyance, when we

‘

were about toleave the bay, a young haughty Portuguese officerbrorrgh t our Prem ier a letter from the Governor of

the place, forbidding him to take the Kafirs with him,

unless, before doing so, the boys satisfied him (theGovernor) that it was with their own free wi ll thatthey were leaving for Mashonaland , and demandingthe imm ediate return of the boys to the shore.

We at once took counsel as to whether we wouldsubm it to the Governor

’s demand or not . Mr. Rhodeshad already advanced each Kafir a few sovereigns

,

besides having provided them with shirts and

blankets . To perm it them new to go ashore wouldsimply have been to al low them to run away wi th whatthey had received, and this they could do very easily,as it was new dark . Besides, they had alreadylawfully entered our service and taken therr quarterswi th us, and they were as willing to go with us as wewere to take them— a fact which their m erry singingand whistling proved as clearly as did their free statements . Having fully discussed the question, we couldnot com e to any other conclusion but that the

Governor’s demand was intended to baffle our,

plans ;we therefore decided to refuse to yield to i t. Theletter-bearer was meanwhile waiting for our answer.

THE PREMIER STANDS NO NONSENSE. 1 33

The Prem ierwent up to him and courteously said tohim

“ Tell yourGovernor that neither the English Agentnor the Dutch Agent, nor any other person that liveshere

,has told us that it is illegal to hire the nati ves

of Inhambane. And, if you wish to m ake certainwhether i t is with their own free will that the boysintend to fol low us, you m ay go and speak to them .

IfI had only consented,fifty m ore would have followed

me . I cannot let them go on shore now— it is toodark and late for that ! ”

“ My order is,

replied the young Portuguese withapparent determ ination,

“ that the Kafirs return withme.

”

And my reply is,

retorted the Prem ier, who wasgetting warm ,

“ that that shall not happen ! Herethey shal l remain Now

,not a word more from you

go and do yourmessageImmediately upon the departure of the messenger

,

Mr. Rhodes turned to the Cap tain of the Norseman and

told him that if he was ready for departure he hadbetternot delay.

No further message did Mr. Rhodes get from the

Governor, but two Portuguese gentlem en with bigblack moustaches came on board.


CHAPTER III.

dt part from Inhambane—The pilot proves an unsuccessfulacrobat- “7 c reach Beira Bay

—In trouble once more aboutourKafirs—Captain Pipon to the rescue—The Governor outw‘

it ted .

AT eleven o’c lock we left Inhambane. It was a darknight— se dark that it became dangerous for our shipto continue its course. Consequently, after havingsailed a few m i les up the b ay, we cast anchor again.

Al l the sky,as far as we could see i t, was overhung

wi th dense clouds, and the rain soon came down in

heavy showers .The following m orning the weather was beautifully

clear again,and i t was pretty to watch the multi

tude of little Kafir-boats that lay fishing in the quietbay. The natives build their own boats, and they doi t very sk ilfully. It is surprising to see how swi ftlythese l ittle vessel s can b e rowed over the water.

A t six o’

clock the anchor was heaved, and the pilotwe had had the previous day was again on board our

sh ip wi th his two Kafir assistants . The awful tim ethe latter had undergone the day before, as a resultofconnecting theirbeat by re pe to theNorseman

’

s stern,

had m ade them wiser ; this time they came on board

and hoisted their b oat on deck. With remarkable


heavy pilot tumbled in the water. Fortunately, one

of the other Kafirs quickly seized his m aster’s foot,held it

,and, wi th the aid of his companion,

draggedthe pilot into the boat. Not an inch of his dress wasdry. His watch hung out of his pocket ; he openedit, exam ined it, blew into it, put i t to his ear,— the poorthing was as wet as its m aster. And so was the tele

scepe that was hanging from his arm . Who couldrefrain from laughing ? The pilot’s ludicrous m ishapdid not, however, in the least affec t his self-esteem heuttered not a word , and, as we stood there shakingwith laughter

,he looked up at us with a m ost sedate

expression on his face as i f nothing at al l had happened,and seem ed to be wondering what was entertaining us.

We resum ed our voyage,and, sai ling opposite the

Hlengaland coast, we could see on it trees of imm ensesize but of what kind they were we could not discern.

During the night following we passed the m outhof the Sabi

,a large river of wh ich the Lund i

i s a tributary ; and a little higher up we passedChiluan Bay

—a b ay, I am told, almost as pretty asthat at Inhambane . Chiluan i s

,l ike most of the

harbours on the East Coast, a very fruitful place. Thenext large river-mouth we passed was that of the

Shashi , twenty-two m i les south of the Pungwe. The

m ouths of these rivers present m agnificent views, and

birds andwi ld animals are there to b e m et with in greatabundance. In course of time

,I

’

dare say, the riverswi ll prove to be ofmuch use and convenience to tradingvessels

,for many of them are navigable far inland,

some from forty to fifty m i les .On Saturday (26 th Sept.) the Norseman with

MORE TR OUBLE ABOUT OUR B OYS. 137

the mouth of the Pungwe on the right, and them outh of the Busi on the left, the former of whichis by far the larger of the two— steam ed into the

beautiful Beira Bay, the end of our voyage in thatboat— 16 10 m i les from Capetown— and at a quarterpast two she cast anchor.

Beira Bay i s undoubtedly a very fine bay, but itsshores are not so richly wooded as those of Inham baneand Chiluan. Beira

,the port, contains some fifty or

sixty houses and some stores , almost all of which are

built of galvanised iron.

There were lying at anchor in the Bay one Engl ishand one Portuguese man-o

’-war and ten smal l sh ips,

exclusive of the Norseman.

On our way from Inham bane to Beira we had discovered that the two Portuguese who had embarkedorr our vessel at the former place were not men of

insignificance : one was a h igh offic ial under the

Governor, and the other a judge.

We had intended to convey ourKafirs,horses and

luggage from the Norseman to the Agnes imm ediatelyon our arrival at Beira and to proceed up the Pungwewithout delay

,bu t the Beira Governor (or the Chief

Commander,as the Portuguese cal led him) destroyed

our programme . We received an order from h im

that the Kafirs we had taken on board at Inhambaneshould all be brought before h im so that they m ightpersonally declare to him whether or not they hadvoluntarily joined us. Meanwhile

,some Portuguese

offic ials came on board to see whether we had broughtwith us any articles to smuggle into the country !Mr. Rhodes, accompanied by Mr. Dennis Doyle and


Maj or Johnson,went ashore to the customs office

,

taking his fifteen Kafirs with him . Under the

charge of Mr. Doyle the boys were sent to theGovernor

,but his Honour did not th ink it worth his

while to com e and speak to them that day. Afterletting them wait at his door the whole afternoon,

he

coolly made his m essenger tel l Mr. Doyle that hecould not see him that day, but would m eet him thefollowing m orning at nine .Darkness had already set in when Mr. Rhodes

,

Maj or Jehnson and Mr. Doyle returned to the Norseman wi th the Kafirs, having accompl ished nothing .

The hope we had cheri shed of spending a nice quietSunday (which was the fol lowing day) on the Agnes

had now to be abandoned . It was not difficult to guessth e m eaning of the Portuguese Commander’s conduct.He evidently wished to show us som e of his red tape

,

and he did so under the cover of being “ Oh,such a

humane man ! Such a saviour of those poor innocent natives whom that Englishman of a Rhodes hadapparently decei vedNo, but we knew better. The cool treatment we

were receiving at his hands was as l ittle occasioned byhis anxiety to protect the natives as to protect theman in the m oon i t was simply to defy and tease thegreat Chartered-Company m an

,whom the Portuguese

both envy and hate.We at once resolved to have recourse to Captain

Pipon, the captain of the British m an-o’-war lying in

the b ay, who was also British Consul at Beira, and tolay ourgrievance before him . He received us wi th thegreatest courtesy, and the Prem ier inform ed him how


Pardon, Mynheer I said to him at last, sprecht

a Hollandsch 9“ Non, replied he.Spreohen Sie deutsch ? I next tried .

Non,”repeated he.

P arlez-roasfrangar’

s Captain Pipon put in.

Oni, Monsieur”was the answer

,and the obstacle

was overcome. Captain Pipon then made clear to theGovernor all that was necessary, but the great Beiralord tried to raise every possible objection to our

retaining the Kafirs,and wound up by saying that

he would decide nothing until he had personallyexam ined the boys . Accordingly

,the latter were

imm ediately cal led in. To our surprise,both the

Governor and his interpreter addressed the Kafirs

in their own (the Kafirs’

) language. I thought thatwe were new beaten out of the field, but Mr. Doyle

,

who had grown up in Natal, understood every wordthat was uttered . All sorts of ridiculous questionswere put to the Kafirs, and they were rem inded of theawful journey before them , its many dangers, etc .

Then Mr. Doyle stepped forward and took up thecudgels forus he spoke inKafir, and with such fluencythat it was wi th astonishm ent and adm iration that thePortuguese gentlem en listened to his words.To m ake a long story short, the Governor at last

asked the Kafirs whether they did not think thattwenty-five shill ings a m onth were too little, addingthat they should each get at least forty sh illings .They answered that they expected forty shillings .The Governor now turned to Mr. Doyle and said tohim

,

WE GAIN OUR POINT. 141

Ah, you see they have been m isled !

No wonder, answered Mr. Doyle, that such

seems to be the case after you have put the words intotheir m ouths.”

Anyhow,we were not going to waste any more time

there . Good-bye,sir!

” Mr. Doyle said to the Commander. I cannot say I m uch esteem your conducttowards us . As for these boys, you may keep them i f

you l ike.”

When we cam e outside Mr. Doyle said to the

Kafirs,“ Now do as you choose— either you return

wi th me to Mr. Rhodes , or you return the m oney hehas given you and stay here At once you m us tdecide, for we are ready to departFor a few m inutes the Kafirs discussed the question

among themselves, and unanim ously decided to fol lowus. After buying som e provisions, we left by boat forthe Norseman Captain Pipen returning to his m an-of

war, the Magicienne. To that kind captain we weremuch indebted without his assistance we wouldcertainly have been delayed another dav or wouldhave had to leave without the Kafirs.

Major Johnson new discovered that two of the casesofour provisions had gone astray , probably at Durban,where they were transhipped from the Mexican to theNorseman. This naturally t o some degree troubledhis m ind

,and he again went on shore to endeavour to

recover the lost cases, but could find no trace of them .

At half-past elevenwe left Beira in the Agnes, a fine,comfortable, flat-bottom ed vessel bu i lt after the style ofthese boats one meets with on European lakes. She isthe property of Messrs . Johnson and Co . Sail ing up


the ri ver for half-an-hour, we passed a beautiful littlei sland densely wooded with the m angrove , a usefultree for building purposes—for boats as well as houses .Som e desolate huts are still to be noticed on theisland .

On the shores of both the Pungwe and the Busithere are to be seen numberless beautifully straightand tal l trees . When Beira becomes the great seaport town for Mashonaland— as I expect it ere longwi l l b e—there will certainly b e no scarcity of excellentbuilding material as far as wood is concerned.At a quarter-past two we passed another islet, resembling the one we had seen at noon, both in itswoods and in its size . We were new ten m iles up theriver

,and yet i ts width was one-and-a-half m iles, and

ofa fair depth .

144 WITI—I RHODES IN MASIJONALAN1) .

the paths they used at nigh t when out grazing, wecould distinctly discern on the river’s banks .At four o’clock we were thirty m iles from Beira, and

here the river was stil l v ery broad. We passedanother “

river-horse,

”and, shortly afterwards

,two

m ore, the latter swimm ing very close to our vessel .We passed a fourth island, a very smal l one, but alsodensely grown with trees with many a native hutamengst them . As we sai led past this islet

, two pirogues,each with a crew of four Kafirs, passed us. Most ofthe canoes possessed by the nati ves along the Pungweare very old and have been handed down from generation to generation. They are exceedingly strong and

have been the means of saving the lives of hundredsduring the pillaging excursions of the Gazas. Thesecanoes are made out of the trunks of trees, and theinstrument s used for the purpose are tools m anufac

tared by the Kafirs them selves .Towards ev ening we passed close by a group of sixhippopotam i . Som e shots were fired at them fromourmoving ship, but without success . Just then anotherpirogue passed us. It was in one of these canoes thatMessrs . Vosloo, Jan Eksteen and Adriaan de Waalcame down the river from Mapandas t o Beira a fortnight before .Lions

,I am told , are frequently to be seen on the

banks of the river from the vessels sail ing in the stream .

We, however, noticed none.The sun having set , i t was rapidly growing dark,

and the captain of the Agnes thought it advisableto cast the anchor, as sai ling in the black night inthat winding stream might result in a stranding. Our

SERENADED BY THE LIONS.

boat was new lying thirty-five m iles from Beira . It

was a quiet evening and the water was so calm thatit did not appear to m ove . We sat on deck . All

around us solemn silence reigned. The weather wasglorious, the sky cloudless ; and as we sat there with

the gloomy stream around us, the black forests vender

on our right and left, and the starry heaven above us

a picture that the ablest artist could not reproduce

our feelings could not but b e affected and our thoughts

carried into the m ystic land .

At eight o’clock we betook ourselves to our l i ttlesaloon and had supper. At nine we were again on

deck . NVe could nowhear the howling ofhyaenas, andnot long afterwards the roaring of l ions. Hearinghyaenas howl was nothing strange to m e— I had heardthat scores of t imes during our previous travel to theinterior— but I had never before heard a l ion grow]

,

at least, not in the open country.

As it got later the dew began to fall, a thin m istformed over the water, and we were advised by thecaptain to go to our cabins , for such was the sortofweather, he said, that so often caused fever. Maj orJohnson confirm ed his words

,and soon we were all in

b ed.

The next morning the weatherwas again del ightful,

and on every side of us we enj oyed majestic scenery.

At five the anchor was weighed, but our ship hadhardly been an hour in m otion when she struck sandand had to lie still once m ore— an inconvenience forwhich we had to thank the Beira Governor, who haddetained us so long.

To avail ourselves ofour leisure, we resol ved to lower


one of the boats we had on deck,row to the shore and

have a water-buck hunt. The Prem ier,the Maj or, and

myself comprisrd the hunting party, and we were

attended by four ofourKafirs. We pulled straight forthe shore, got out there, and clambered Up the slipperybank . Scai'cely had we reached level ground when wecaught sight of a herd of hundreds ofwater-bucks

,or

witgatbokk en, as som e cal l them . Percei ving us, ands tartled by the shots we fired

, the animal s ran bewildered into grass two and a half feet h igh and verym oist wi th dew. Notb ing daunted, however, we pursuedthem there, though it was a picture for Punch thatwe presented as we struggled through the wet grass.After an hour’s chase Mr. Rhodes and I gave up thepursui t in disgust. Maj or Johnson, however, was

determ ined to shoo t som eth ing before he returned,so

we left him behind wi th two Kafirs, while we returnedt o the ship with our nether garments as wet as the

grass that had made them so. We changed our clothesand had breakfast. An hourafterwards Maj or Johnsonarrived, his two Kafirs together carry ing half a buck .

He had shot two, a male and a fem ale. We sent eightKafirs to fetch the buck and a half that had been leftbehind, and wi th in an hourthe b oys returned with theirheavy lead. We were thus wel l suppl ied with meat

,

the he-bu‘

ck alone weighing 250 lbs. The animal swere soon flayed

,and it was surprising to see how

greedily the Kafirs ate the raw l iverand lungs . I hadwitnessed some of them on the Norseman cram themselves with the raw stom ach of an ex

,and I though t

that singular,but never did I expect to see them

gluttonize over raw lung, pancreas and liver.


these plants and fruits, it is very unhealthy for theEuropean. With the aborigine, however, the cl imateseems to agree very well . The Portuguese soldierssta tioned there leek simply m iserable . I firm ly bel ievethat that place, together wi th the adjoining country,would, i f it were cultivated, thereby having its insalubrity lessened if not altogether taken away, developinto no insignificant a source of supply to the worldfor coffee

,rice

,sugar, et c . As regards its summ er

temperature, i t is no warmerthan that at Durban,Natal .The Portuguese there, like the natives

,dwell in

huts ; and there i s no difference between the hut of thePortuguese and that of the Kafirs, and not m uchdistinction between the two races . The Portuguesewear clothes

,the Kafirs do not ; the Portuguese are

yellow, the Kafirs black ; the Portuguese are physicall y weak, the Kafirs strong— these are the onlystriking differences ; for the rest they are one. Theym ix with each other, take each other around the waist

,

and talk one language when together—Kafir. This iscertain though : the natives are m ore cleanly in theirhabits than their yellow m asters . The latter are as

th in as dried fish, and they die l ike rats.

( 149 )

CJIAPTER V.

Unloading under diffi cult ies—Pikenin as tonishes us with an acre

bat ic feat Crocodile Nest Supper at Mapandas—A nov el

way of destroying rats—A wild-goose chase—Outspan at

Muda—Ournight’s res t disturbed by lions .

IT cost us some time and trouble to rem ove our goodsfrom the Agnes . One by one, by the help of pulleys

,

our horses in their boxes were l ifted from the boat tothe shore. Four of them were in this way safelylanded, but , as the fifth was being swung over

,the

rope snapped, and down came the cage with horse and

all. The box broke,and the startled horse escaped

unhurt. But Pikenin, the boy of seventeen whomI had selected at Beira to b e my attendant

,had

been hanging to the rope with which the horse in i tscage had been hauled up; and so

,when the rope

snapped beneath him,the pole to which it was attached

was swung back with great force and the boy alongwith it. I trembled at the sight, expecting a seriousaccident. But, to the amazem ent of us all

, Pikenin

stil l firmly clung to the rope,and there hung high in

the air over the water like a fish hooked to a l ine .How to free h im self trom this awkward position he didnot know. To throw himself down into the river

,


am ong the crocodiles , was dangerous ; to remainclinging to the rope was impossible . What was he todo ? The only course open to him was to ri sk the fall,and that course he adopted. I shuddered to see h im

go down. Head and heels he went under the water;but up again he cam e, and, am id l oud cheers from his

fellow-Kafirs as wel l as from ourselves,swam l ike

a fish t o the ship .

“ Bravo,my boy ! I hailed him .

“ Few would dowhat you have done to-day.

”

Had he been a white man much would have beensaid of the surprising feat he had performed ; but,being a negro

,his gallant performance was to be

appreciated only so long as i t lasted. Pikenin,

of whom I was new more proud than ever, appearedto know nothing of what had happened. Wi thoutpaying the slightes t regard to the praises he received,he quietly sat down for a rest, and soon afterwards wasagain hard at work . I watched him al l the while and

could not bu t adm ire his conduct .At half-past three all was landed . Our cart, packed

wi th as much as could go on it, was inspanned, and wewere ready to start on our land journey. Every horse

,

t oo, had to carry something.

In the forenoon, as Major Johnson was having con

siderab le difficulty in landing the horses,I went to

h is assistance and instructed some of the boys how toact , but this action of m ine seemed to please neitherthe Prem ier nor the Major, and the former sm ilinglysaid to me

Do you know, my friend, that too many cook s spoilthe broth ?


Nonsense said the Prem ier, with a guilty sm i le .Go on shore and help them .

”

I jumped into a boat,rowed to the bank

,and at

once ordered the two m ost unruly of the six horses tobe outspanned . I shortened the breast-belts and somestrings

,put the harness right, placed six Kafirs at the

wheels, m ade one take the rope in front,took the whip

myself, and commanded as I struck the horsesNow, boys— push !

And offwent the cart. It had not gone far, however,when, in a l ittle val ley

,the horses again stopped . I

went thither, again made the Kafirs put their shouldersto the wheel s, gave the horses another drubbing, andagain they started.

Maj or Johnson,attended by the Kafirs, followed

the cart on horseback . I re turned to Mr. Rhodes,who was waiting for m e at the river to leave byboat for Mapandas, where we were to m eet thecart. The j ourney thither by river would be abouteight or nine m i les . It was hal f-pas t fourwhen we

entered the boat wi th two Kafirs,who were to be the

rowers . We soon sailed round a cornerof the Medink i

dinki Island, a piece of land about. forty m iles long andtwenty broad, around both sides of which the Pungweflows . It is the abode

,I am told, of m any kinds of

wild beast ; bears abound there, and the place is so

noted for its reptiles that it i s known by m any as

“ Crocodile Nest,”

and no native would venture tol ive near the river. Yet , upon that sam e

“ island ”

Major Johnson and Dr. Jam eson spent a night last

year, not , however, a very comfortable one. Theyonly became aware of the sort of place they had

WE REA CH IWAPANDAS. 153

chosen to sleep in when theirrest was disturbed by thepresence ofhippopotam i and the roars of l ions .The sun set and we were stil l far from Mapandas,

and we now becam e afraid that we would not reachthe place before night, so Mr. Rhodes prom ised thebeatmen each an eatra sovereign if they succeeded inbringing us to our destination ere dark . Withincreased energy the boat was new rowed, the Kafirs

singing merrily all the while a m ost m onotonous tune,which st i ll seem s to ring in my ears . At seven o

’

clockwe reachedMapandas. Mr. Rhodes and I each m ounteda Kafir

’

s back, and with great difficulty were carriedon land, the ground being very sl ippery.Mapandas i s a Portuguese station

,lying about

seventy m i les from Beira, and provided with a couple

of smal l shops. It is a damp , and, consequently , nuhealthy place.

Major Johnson had already arrived with the cartwhen we cam e there. We put up at the Messrs .Cowhan

,who treated us very lrospitably. They gave

us a well-furnished, com fortable room,with fine beds.

We changed our wet clothes, and thereafter partook

ofan enjoyable supper. As we sat at table,rats were

running to and fro along the beam s and rafters,wh i lst

l ittle Kafir boys were busily engaged shooting at themwi th smal l arrows . But rats are not the only creaturesthat annoy the inhabitants ofMapandas. Mosquitoesare worse . I did not have a bad night there, however,for I had a curtain round my bedstead to keep theinsects out besides

,I was too tired to trouble mysel f

about m osquitoes .The following morning we were di sappointed to find


the drizzling rain,that had begun to fal l the day

before, cerrt inue.

Mr. Rhodes bought a cart and an oval- shaped tentfrom a Mr. Fraser at Mapandas. How we were to getaway from there wi th two carts by horses that t heday before would hardly pull one, time m ust show.

The weather began to c lear up in the afternoon and

we made ourselves ready to depart from the dampm osquito -camp . A t ten o

’

clock the two carts wereinspanned

,each with four horses ; and three ponies

were saddled for Mr. Rhodes, Maj or Johnson and

me. We had a great deal oftrouble with these almostungovernable perhaps also untrained animals .Horses were repeatedly changed, and ultimately al l

three ponies we had chosen to ride upon were inharness . Mr. Rhodes, Major Johnson and I sat on

one cart ; Will iam and Tonie on the other ; whils tthe outspanned horses carrying the pack—saddles werebeing led by the Kafirs.We had not left Mapandas farbehind when we came

across a group of bucks and, a little further, a herd of

Lichtenstein hartebees ts ; but we fa i led to shoot any.

Many strange animals ran about from one bush to

another every t ime a shot was fired ; am ongst these Inoticed wild pigs looking lrke lions from a distance .

The Lichtenstein lrartebeest is a pretty animal and isfound only on the East Coast of Africa.

Just before sunset we crossed a spruit (i.e. a

tributary of some ri ver), and, as we did so,we caught

s ight of som e large wild geese walk ing on the side of

a pool about hal f a m i le from our cart. My two

friends pressed me to go and shoot them . NVell, an


my l ife . O f what earthly use would my shot-gunhave been to me i f a lion had plunged upon m e

Shortly afterwards Maj or Johnson fired at someLichtenstein hartebeests, b ut m issed . Next we m et a

lot of bastard hartebeests . Zebras, too, we saw in

numbers,whilst new and then we also sighted a wild

dog, an anim al that frequently preys upon the youngof zebras . Towards evening we passed groups of threeor four k inds of bucks

,which appeared as

’ tam e as

oxen, but we did‘

not take the trouble to shoot any as

we had neither the inclination nor the t ime to do so ;

the sun being already low in the west and we had not

yet reached a spot suitable to out-span at .

Mr. Rhodes, Major Johnson and I drove some

distance in advance of the cart which we had left inTonie’s care. But William soon cam e running up tous to tell us that the wheels of Tonie’s cart had sunkrrr the mud at a marshy place, that the horses wereunable to draw them out , and that, owing to all thejerking, one of the swingle-bars had broken. NVe

returned to the cart, made a sort of swingle out of a

piece of wood, and set the cart in its course again.

A little past sunset we outspanned at Muda River,

som e m iles from Mapandas. There we pitched the tentthat Mr. Rhodes had bought from Mr. Fraser, and

spread out his stretcher— a very handy article thatMr. Fraser had presented him with . Both the tentand the stretcher proved of great use and convenienceduring our j ourney.

Being aware that l ions abounded about the Muda, we

took precaution to render our l ittle camp as safe as

possible. Having tied our horses, we at se ven o’clock

LIONS NEAR THE CAMP . 157

sat down to supper, the silence of the evening beingrepeatedly broken by the howling of hyaenas, whichwas followed shortly afterwards by the roaring of lions .

“ Well, my friends, Major Johnson observed, we

m ay prepare ourselves for a storm y night and, as he

was an experienced travel ler in Africa, having beenthe leader of the Pioneers to Mashonaland, his warningcarried weight. We ordered our boys to see that thehorses were well tied

, and to collect a large quantity ofwood . The darker it grew

,the l ouder becam e the

noise of the lions from al l s ides .Between ten and eleven we went to sleep— the Pre

m ier in his stretcher in the m i ddle of the tent, theMajor and myself on the ground a t his side. Smal lthough the tent was, it comfortably accommodatedthe three of us . The fierce growling of the l ionswas still growing worse . My two companions weresoon fast asleep, but I, feel ing anxious about thesafety of the horses, could not close my eyes . Iknew that we could not dispense wi th a single horse.

If the l ions entered the camp and killed our draughtanimal s, the whole programm e of our j ourney would beset at nought

,and no other course would be Open to us

but to turn b ack . Judg ing by the noise, som e five or

six l ions were strol ling in close proxim ity to our

camp .

At two o’

clock in the night one of our horses —probably through a start— got loose. I cal led Wil l iam

,

and ordered him at once to tie the horse again ;for I knew that if i t ran out of the camp it was sure tofal l a prey to the l ions . William was afraid to getup : but , on m v threatening to punish h im i f he dis


obeyed, he crept out of his b ed, though very reluctantly ,and with the assistance of som e of the Kafirs, and notwithout considerable di fficulty, b e secured the horseagain.

The Inhambane Kafirs,in order to keep away the

wi ld animal s from the camp,kept a large fire al ive all

night. Towards morning the wi ld noises gradual lygrew less, till at last nothing at al l was to be heard .

It was onl y then that I could fall asleep, and I enjoyedan hour

’

s sweet repose.

“ Dear m e,

” I thought, as Iarose, “ i f the first night pass like this, I wonderwhatthe rest wil l be like


my gun, the one barrel ofwhich was loaded wi th sho tand the otherwith a bullet, and, as quietly as I could,I made towards them . At a distance of about a

hundred yards from the cart I sl ipped behind somedate-trees . The animals, not noticing m e

,came nearer

and nearer unti l they were between forty and fiftyyards from me. Goodness ! I wondered, “

are thesesomebody ’s oxen or are they buffaloes I stood stillfor a whi le

,watched them m ore closely

, and becam eaware by their strong-built bodies and downwardgrowing bent horns that they were buffaloes I hadbefore me . I slowly and qu ietly levelled the gun at oneof them and fired . The bullet struck the animal— inthe neck, I presume—and set i t spinning giddily rounditsel f a few times ; b ut , when I expected it to fall

,i t

trotted away unsteadily towards som e m imosas on thebanks of the Muda. Its mate, which , judging by itshorns and size, was a bull, stood m otionless for a fewm om ents as if astounded

,then, with its head uplifted,

i t fiercely glanced in every direction, wonderingwhence the shot had come. I in the m eantim e keptm yself as qu iet as a mouse behind the palm , for Iknew that if I mov ed and caused the animal to catchsight of m e

,i t would immediatelv dash upon me, and

where would I then b e ? My gun would have availed

m e noth ing, fora buffalo is not an animal that could bekilled by a sm al l bullet, unless the lead enters its brains

or heart . The puzzled animal, having in vain looked

for what i t must have considered a very mysteriousfoe, fol lowed i ts mate. The Kafirs

, who had beenwatching me from a distance, new wanted m e topursue the wounded buffalo, but no, thanks said I.

RIG GAME ON ALL SIDES. 16 1

Had I not fired so soon as I did, but waited insteadt il l the animals were within twenty-fiv e yards of m e,

I could easi ly have shot one through the head and

have felled it ; but then, suppose the enraged bri l lflew upon m e

After again enduring a great deal of annoyancefrom the horses, we overtook Mr. Rhodes and MajorJohnson

,who had been wai ting for us. I told them of

my buffalo-shooting, and sugges ted that we shouldtogether turn back and hunt the wounded animal, butthey had no desire to do se— and no wonder, for gamewas new to be seen on every side. Am ongs t the

animals having their habitation in that part of theworld are the buffalo, the Lichtenstein hartebeest, thekoodoo

, the zebra, the wild pig, the wild dog , variouskinds of buck, and num erous k inds of the smal leranimals ; in fact, I m ay say the whole country isone vast zoological garden.

I also new mounted a horse, leaving one cart inTonie ’s hands and charging VVrll iam with the other.

I was wiserthis time than I had been some hours before ;I was not again going to take the exclus ive control ofthe carts into m y hands and allowMr. Frank Johnsonthe m an solely to blame that we had no be tter horses—to sit l ike a lord upon his horse and there enjoyhimsel f. Oh , no ; I was going to iirspan him when thehorses again refused to pull .Suddenly a herd of zebras m ade their appearance .Mr. Rhodes qu ickly dismounted and shot a beautifulmare through the head. The Kafirs ran to the fallenanimal, flayed it, and brought i t piece by piece to thecarts . \Ve were new l iterally surrounded by animal s

,

M


but , being already supplied wi th m ore m eat than we

needed for the present,we would not shoot at them ,

for it would have been a cruelty to kill the innocentcreatures and leave them lying for the vultures .Besides, Mr. Rhodes had shot half-a-dozen pheasants

,

and these also required space in the cart,every corner

ofwhich was new filled .

At seven o’clock Tonie upset his cart, with the

result that the pele broke. It took us half an hour tomake another.

At eight we arrived at the Mudichiri R iver, wherewe were confronted by an awful piece ofroad . On the

.one side of the river we had to descend a slope alm ostperpendicular to the surface of the shore

,and on the

other side we had to m ount ano ther equal ly steep .

We packed as much of the goods upon the horses as

we could,and made the Kafirs carry the rest. We had

indeed no easy task before us . Slowly or ev en at a

m oderate rate we could not drive down the bank, forthat would certainly resul t in our cart sticking downin the river ; on the other hand, i f we drove hard ,there was the glaring probability of the vehiclebeing overturned . However, being compelled to adopteither of the two courses, we chose the latter. I tookthe reins and Major Johnson the whip .

Pull ! shouted I toWilliam ,who held the rope in

front, and down the slope we went l ike the wind.

S tartled and bewildered, up the opposite bank the

horses rushed as if the Evil Spirit was after them , and

thank Heaven cart number one”was through

the Mudichiri.

hVe now returned to fetch the second cart . But it

164 WITH RHoDES IN MASHONALAND.

of some trees on the bank of the river. The Maj or

(clothed in l ittle else than a pleasing sm ile), wasengaged m ending the trousers he had torn earlier inthe m orning , while I was taking down notes in my

pocket-book .

“ De Waal , he suddenly called, “ come and see

something here !I went

,and he pointed out to m e a huge crocodile

basking itself in the rays of the sun on the farthers ide ofthe pool in which we had swum .

“ Man,” I observed, “

real ly we m ust be m orecareful W l lh respect to the pool s we bat he in, or elseas sure as fate these crocodiles wi l l do away wi th us .”

He agreed with me, bu t added,“ You wi ll see, i f

we swim swiftly, kick hard with our feet, and m ake as

much noise in the water as we can,they wil l be afraid

t o tackle us.

”

At half-past two we left the river,passed through a

really beautiful tract of country and halted at halfpast four in a val ley. Having allowed our draughtanimals to have a rol l on the ground and to q uenchtheir thirst, we again put them to the carts

,and with

out further delay— though two of ourKafirs whom we

had left in charge ofa fine chestnut horse packed with

pets and pans, e tc. ,were stil l behind—proceeded on our

way. This, however, was a serious m istake. As i t wasalready late in the afternoon, and we had reached a

place where there was water, we should have stoppedthere. As it was, we travelled on

,Tonie and Wi lliam

driving the carts . The road was new level,and we

were m aking steady, though somewhat sl ow,progress .

Thousands of zebras hav e their abode in the country

ANKIOUS MOMENTS. 165

we were new travell ing through , and i t i s chiefly owingt o the presence of these animals that so many hytenas ,wild dogs

, and l ions inhabi t the place. A lion veryeasil y catches a zebra when it has a foal, a s well as thefeal itself.Twi light set in

, and hyaenas shortly afterwardsannounced the approach of night. At half-past seven

the lions began with their horrible roars . NVe shouldby this tim e have ended the j ourney for the day, bu t,as we were still in search of a decent place at which toou tspan

,a place where there was water

,we continued

to advance . Major Johnson rode in front, Wi lliam

cl osely followed him with one cart, and Mr. Rhodes

and m ysel f with Tonie and the other cart cam e on

beh ind . We took care to keep near to the cart in

order to pro tect it from the dangers of the nigh t . The

cart in front we knew was safe, being under the Major’s

care, but we felt very anxious about the party beh indus

,the two Kafirswith the mare. The later i t becam e

the worse becam e the dreadful roaring around us, andwe fel t extrem ely uncom fortable.

Our p arty, as I have already m entioned,was new

broken up into three parts—Major Johnson wi th\Vil liam , the Kafirs and one cart leading t he way,

ourselves wi th the second cart fol lowing at a cons iderable d istance, and the two Kafirs with the mare (ourbest horse) far behind . And each division was

,as it.

were,surrounded by wi ld anim als. of which their

king,the lion, created the greatest noise. We passed

through some dark woods,so dark, indeed, that we

could hardly distinguish the trees . At eight o ’

clockTonie ran the cart into a tree, and i t was wi th great


trouble that we got it. free again. Meanwhile thel ions in the woods appeared to come nearer and nearerto us, and we naturally felt very uneasy . But to outspan where we now found ourselves was inno way adv is

able, so we slowly continued the course, myself leadingthe horses by a rope. One lion we heard so close to usthat we at anym om ent expected it to m ake its appearance

,so we had our guns ready foran attack. S tep by

step our horses slowly m oved on,darkness preventing

them from going any faster. At length Mr. Rhodesrequested us to halt

,and asked m e whether I did not

deem i t prudent to outspan. After briefly d iscussingour position, we thought it. better to proceed unt i l weo vertook Major Johnson

, with whom we were becom inggreatly displeased for leaving us in the lurch .

At las t— it was not far from nine—we arriv ed a t

two Kafir huts, and there we found the offending Major,with his cart already outspanned . Great was our j oy.

Every drop ofwater the Kafirs had in their huts wedrank up

,and we paid them 33 . 6d. to fetch us another

two buckets ful l . The Kafirs who were to fetch themeach took a piece ofwood in h is hand, set one end of i ton fire, and thus m ade it serve two purposes— as a torchin the dark

,and as a weapon against the beasts of prev .

They returned with water as clear as crystal, and wefelt so happy to get i t that we soon forgot all thedissatisfaction our friend Johnson had given us thatevening . We raised our li ttle tent, m ade our campsecure and t ied the horses, which , to our regret, had torem ain without water for the night .In order to protec t them selves from the wild

animals, the Kafirs residing there had their huts en


I would not trouble him again.

All right, I said to William ,

“ I am com ing.

But hardly had the words been uttered when I wasagain fast asleep, and knew as l ittle about the lionas did the Maj or. Meanwhile the Kafirs did all thev

could to protect the camp .

At break of day, whilst my friend next to m e and

I were still in dream land, the Prime Mini st er got up

and walked som e distance from the cam p,b ut he had

not gone far when he suddenly turned round, and

wi th all the swiftness with which his legs couldcarry him he m ade for the camp . Excited and out of

breath he wildly rushed into the tent, therebyarousing and startling up the Major and m yself.

YVhat’

s the m atter? we simultaneously and

anxiously inquired .

“ A lion has been chasing m e I the Prem ier repliedwith emotion, and then he paused to recover his breath .

With his pyjamas hanging below his knees and still halfbreath less, he now began to relate what had befallenhim . He had been some distance from the camp

,when

suddenly he heard a loud roar, and this was imm ediatelyfollowed by the appearance of a l ion a short distancefrom him . He started , and at once took t o his heels.He could not tel l us how far the l ion had followed him

,

because in his flight he had no tim e to cast a lookbehind him . This was a sensational story ; b ut Maj orJohnson and myself were not bound

,m uch less pre

pared , to bel ieve it to be exact. In our opinion, despite

the Prem ier’s avowal that he had seen the animal,i t

was a hyaena that had frightened him ,for there were

numbers of h i aenas strolling about the place ; and, as

THE PREMIER HAS A FRIGHT. 169

for the roar he heard,it must have been at least a

corrple ofhundred yards away from him . At any rate,the incident afforded us much amusement, and I wouldgladly pay ten pounds for a photo of ourPrem ier ashe looked when he entered the tent wi th his fallenpyjamas.OurKaflr-boys assured us that they had not closed

their eyes for one m inute during the night ; a largenumber of hyaenas had strolled in the vic ini ty of the

camp al l the time,and more than once som e of them

disturbed the horses, but were kept from doing m ischiefby t he boys fl inging at them pieces of burning woodout of the fire, which was kept al ive throughoutthe night. But what had annoyed and frightened theKafirs most was the lion that William had wanted meto shoot ; it had repeatedly come very near to thecamp .


CHAP l'

ER VII.

Sarmento—The apes watch us bathing—We have to abandon one

ofour cart s—Packing and unpacking—Difficul ties grow an ] I

am at tacked with despondency—W e resolve to give up our

second cart also—A lion kil ls one of our horses - Beautifulpalm s, b ut b ad wa ter.

AT six in the m orning we started for Sarm ento,and

on our way thither we had to descend a kloof witha steep declivity, at the bottom of which there wasa smal l running stream . We m anaged to m ake the

descent with less trouble than we had expected, thoughnot without breaking the third cart-pole bu t now toget upthe opposite side ! All our endeavours to forcet he horses to draw the carts up the elevation were

in vain. Nothing was left us bu t to unpack the cartdraw them up ourselves,and return for the unloadedarticles . This was done successful ly at the expenseof some exertion.

We outspanned a short di s tance from Sarmento, a

Portuguese station on the Pungwe. The banks of thebeautiful river were here again adorned with the

prettiest trees and shrubs that the eye of m an couldfall upon. Sarm ento is charm ingly si tuated, and the re,

as at Mapandas, the Portuguese dwel l in huts. The

head officers of the place cam e to see us,and were


An enormous ape sat behind the foliage of a branchabove our heads, watching us acutely and evident lywondering what sort of creatures it was he saw beneathhim . It was no longer a m ystery to us where thestrange scream ing that we had so repeatedly heardduring the m orning had come from .

Leaving the anim al in peace, we undressed oursel vesunder some wi ld fruit-trees, and had a very enjoyablebath in the clear water. On returning for our clothes

,

we found some inquisitive apes si tting on the branchesimm ediately above us . They did no t seem to havethe slightest fear for human beings, probably becausethe Portuguese deem ed it waste of ammunit ion to

shoot at them .

After the bath we had dinner,and after dinner we

discussed what to do with our poleless cart . It wasthe cart which Mr. Fraser had sold to Mr. Rhodes forfifty pounds . It had only served us forty-five m iles,the d istance between Mapandas and Sarmento

, and

thrice upon the way its pole had broken. Di sgustedwith the th ing, we decided to get rid ofit altogether.

A t four o ’clock in the afternoon we bade the cartgood-bye, taking its cush ions with us

,and rode to Sar

m ento . There we gave the Portuguese gentlemen theprom ised cartridges, for which they heartily thankedus. Mr. Rhodes told them they could take the carthe had left behind , but they did not care to haveit,since they had neither horses nor oxen ; such

animals cannot l ive in that country— the t setse -flydestroys them .

Leaving Sarm ento,our road ran for some distance

over a bit of very undulating country. \Ve had to

WEARY AND DISHEARTENED. 17 8

descend so rapid a slope that we were obliged to takeevery article off the cart and carry it oursel ves , and it

was not wi thou t great difficulty that we brought the

cart up to the elevation on the opposite side. Again

we packed the th ings upon it, but they had not been

there long when they had to be taken off again, for

we were confronted by another ravine with a sharpdeclivity on the one side and a steep ascent on the

other. This up-and-down travell ing continued for

some distance, with the result that the task ofpackingand unpacking the cart had to be perform ed four orfiv e times— a business that fairly exhausted the strengthof

‘

Major Johnson and myself.At six o’clock we arrived at a small running stream ,

and there we ended the day ’s travel , having completedonly two m i les from Sarm ento , and fouraltogether thewhole day.

I felt unwel l in the evening and in low spiri ts . Isaw how our friend Johnson had imposed on us

Instead of travelling in a waggon-road, as he had saidwe would, we were going in a Portuguese footpath ;and so wre tched was that footpath that in manyparts of i t a horse could not b e ridden— the rider wasobliged to dismount and lead the animal . I must

, how

ever,acknowledge that, directly , I m yself was to blam e

for the disagreeable time we were now enduring— itwas through me that the trip was m ade by way of

the East Coast ; Mr. Rhodes had preferred to travelthrough Bechuanaland

,and m eet the waggons, which

had been specially built for our j ourney, at Macloutsi,

from whence we were to proceed with them . To hisplan I would on no account subm i t ; I woul d rather

1 7 4 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND .

have stayed at hom e than take t he same route we hadtaken the year before ; and, besides, I knew that i f wedid that

,we would not be able to v is it Beira, owing to

the fevers that generally prevai l there in the monthofNoxember.

As it was, our prospects as to the further journeywere gloomy and our hearts sinking. Everythingseem ed to b e against us . Our otherwise cheerfulPrem ierwas quiet, and that he felt i ll at case could beread upon his face . To add to our adversity, the twoKafirs whom we had left in charge of the mare had not

yet turned up, andwe were feeling exceedingly anxiousabout them .

With no great heart we at length sat down to our

evening meal, and afterSom e silence we began seriouslyto discuss the situation.

Well,said Mr. Rhodes at last

,

“ we are here ina dark, wild world ! What wi ll it avai l us now toupbraid Major Johnson with having deceived us with

t he road, or of what use is it now reproaching him forhaving bought those useless horses ? What lies beforeus is to decide what to do ; and if we don

’t make thatdecis ion now, the delay m ay result in our cat chingfever. We have only one cart with us

, and we can

hardly make any progress with it. It seems to m e

that we shall be compelled to ride on horseback som e

two hundred m iles—and in a scorching heat of between100 and 1 20

'

degrees . Oome, speak out your m inds,and let us devise a plan by which to mak e m ore rapidprogress and with less trouble !

“ Wel l,” I replied, ei ther we must get rid also of

the second cart or prepare for fev er. As it is, I


the other s ide of Sarmento there l ie the remains of ahorse, which, judging from the footprints in t he sandaround it, has been killed by l ions ; and around theanimal som e kitchen utensils l ie strewn.

”

“ It can be no otherhorse than the one we have lost,

said Mr. Rhodes. What colour i s it ? ”

How can I tel l you that,

”was the reply, “ when

all that I saw of the poor creature was its feet andbones ? ”

“ And can you tel l us noth ing about the twoKafirs we anxiously asked.

“ No, answered the m i ssionary .

“ But tel l me,

from where did they com e ? ”

“ From Inhambane.

”

“ Well, said he,“ I happen to know a great deal

about the natives of Inham bane . What I may assureyou is th is : either those Kafirs have been killed byl ions or, because they were afraid they would perishat your hands for not having guarded the horse againstthe beasts of prey, they have fled back to Inhambane .

The m issionary was on his way to Gazaland, the

kingdom ofGugunhana . He told us he had a beautifulstation in that country, and that he l ived there like a

king.

Bidding him farewell , we left at hal f-past six. Itwas with a sense of sorrow that I cast a last look at

the fine cart, the pretty harness, the useful cushions,and the new blankets, which we now gave over to them ercies of the wilderness . Our travell ing was now

anything but enjoyable. Now and then a horse’sbundle would sl ide down the animal ’s back and hangundernea th its belly, when we had to hal t and put it

THE ORNAMENTAL PALM 7 7

right again. Our path was now winding through a

bamboo- forest, whose growth was so dense that wecould scarcely see the sky above us . Thousands of

footprints of wi ld animals were to b e noticed in thesand, those of the elephant not excluded . We tookcare not to leave the road

,because the slightest

dev iation m ight resul t in our losing the way and our

falling a prey to the beast s of the woods .At eleven o’clock we halted at the side of a deep

l ittle ri ver. Its waterwas bad, but , as we knew of nobetter near by, we allowed our horses t o drink of i t.For our personal use we obtained some water fromunderneath a rock, but , though it looked purer than theother

,it tasted as bad ; and, unfortunately, we felt so

warm,tired and thirsty that we could no t go without

it. We drank some brandy with it as an antidote tofever, and we m ade a free use of the quinine pill s wehad brought wi th us.

Every now and then we heard a l ion roar,wh ich

was som ething strange t o us we were used to hearingthem during the night, but never before had we heardthem during daytime.

We next halted under a beautiful palm,an excel lent

specimen ofits kind ; i t was between sixty and seventyfeet in height , very thin at the bottom

,thicker in the

m iddle, and wearing a magnificent cres t at the top .

The fruit of that species of the palm approaches thatof the ordinary cocoa-nut in size ; i t contains a sweetsm elling, nourishing , oily juice, of which Kafirs are

very fond. The pecul iar large leaves of the tree

present a pretty sight, and the faintest breeze setsthem in wave-like m otion

,causing a noise resembling

N


that produced by waves breaking on the sea-shore .The particular tree underwhich we were now standingwas heavily laden with frui t, m ost of which was ripeand of a dark-brown colour. Though I had alreadytwo palm—nuts inmy portm anteau, which I had obtaineda t Sarmento

,I was desirous to have som e from this

large tree,for they were m uch bigger than any I had

seen before ; but I could discoverno means of gettingthem

,so I had to be content with merely looking at

them . The “ ornamental palm ,

”as some call it, thri ves

best near water, and i t differs from the date and

cocoanut-palm s in being far rarer and in not growingtogether in groups ; i t was only here and there thatwe saw one. I took a fancy to them , and I always feltas though I were near a homely friend when I cam e t oone of them .


but all that we could see from the top of it was one

vast continuation of woods. However, we decided togo farther. Down, down, down the h i ll we rode, and

eventual ly we reached the stream we had so eagerlysought . The water ran in a deep channel

, and was on

both sides darkened by dense growth . I was m orethirsty than I recollect ever having been before, and

Mr. Rhodes was not much less so. However, I couldnow drink to my heart

’s content— and I drank unti l Ifelt I could not drink a thimbleful m ore . My com

panion,however, was m ore temperate.

The intention we had of tak ing a bath in the riverwe of course abandoned . Having let our horses drink

,

we led them back a l ittle distance,and there

,at the

foot of the declivity, each holding his horse by t hebridle wi th the one hand and his gun with the other,we patiently awaited Maj or Johnson. We waited and

waited, but no Johnson turned up. Imagine our

position ! It was dark, pitch dark . We stood in a

wilderness where only anim als reigned . Woods werein front of us

,woods behind us

,woods above us . The

place was dam p and m ost unhealthy. Time drearilypassed, and at eight o’c lock we heard and saw as littleof our friend as we did at seven. We fel t v eryuneasy .

Wil l it not be best to return by the way we havecom e ? Mr. Rhodes at last suggested.

“ Impossible I replied .

“ How are we to get upthis ascent ? It is too steep to ride up, whilst to walkit will cost too much tim e and trouble. Besides, whatchance have we of finding Johnson in the dark ? Ifhe has chosen the road by which we came, he will

THE VALUH OE MATOHES. 181

me et us here if he hasn’t, our going in search of him

will be useless . No, I should th ink it is best, afterall,to wai t where we are.

The howl ing of hyaenas in the m eantim e was worsethan ever.

“ Have you any matches wi th you ? I asked,intending to light a fire.

The Prem ier searched his pockets, and N he

answered with surprise . “ Bu t,surely,

”b e added,

you don’t m ean to say that you have no matches

with y ou ? An Africander nev er travels wi thoutmatches !Good heavens—no I repl ied.

We fel t equally embarrassed and disappointed at

the discovery .

In the m eantim e the water I had drunk was havinga very b ad effec t on m e . I felt m iserably sea-sick,

”

a sensation the Premier had also felt,though in a less

degree, during the afternoon.

Anotherhalf-hourpassed,and still we could not hear

anything of Major Johnson. It had grown so darknow that we could neither see the sk y above us nor

t he ground upon which we stood . \Ve were indeed in a

m ost uncom fortable position, and we began t o dreadthat we would have to re main in i t all the night— a ll

the night,that is to say, if nothing worse befel l us

before the night was over. There was plenty of dry

wood around us , but we had noth ing wi th which tol ight a fire. I would gladly then have given fivepounds for a box ofmatches .At last, to my joy, I dim ly heard a cal lKOO~fwé


I hear them shout ! ” I said .

No, you don’t ! ” replied my friend ;

“ I am sharpofhearing , and I hearnothing .

”

KOO-we!”

again it sounded .

Yes, I hear it ! said Mr. Rhodes cheerfully .

At the top of my voice I returned the cry, whichwas again imm ediately responded to, and at fiv e

m inutes past nine all the members of our partywere again t ogether. Our j oy was great . MajorJohnson lectured us severely for having ridden so farin advance of him , and he assured us that, if he hadnot by chance observed the footprints of our horses,he would have chosen a different road from the one

we had taken ; and what a night would we have spentWe now resolved Once for al l never again to leave eacho ther towards evening.

The l i ttle river at which we now stopped we namedR iver of Hel l, partly on account of it s lying in

so deep a ravine, and partly because of the veryunpleasant hours Mr. Rhodes and I had spent therein the almost Opaque darkness . We heard no lionsduring the night, but since it often happens that thequieter a lien is the m ore dangerous, we kept ourselvesupon our guard .

At six o ’clock the fol lowing m orning we left theriver

,and after a few m iles ’ ride we unsaddled our

horses and allowed them a l itt le grazing . At half-pasteleven we arrived at an old camp, fifteen m iles fromthe R iver of Hell . There were som e Kafir hut s anda pretty river flowed c lose by .

It was here that we m et Bowden, the wel l-knowncricketer

,and a number of other people. Mr. Bowden


with his hands and fee t as he could, swam t o one of

the flowers,picked it , and, holding it with his mouth ,

returned with it. With anxiety I stood watchinghim

,fearing that at any m oment he m ight disappear

for ever. When he arriv ed on shore he boastinglysaidHere I am ! And see what a pretty flower I have

brought with me ! It is now your turn to fetchanother ! ”

But I had no desire deliberately to cast my l ife inperil .

“ Man, he said teasingly then, are you such a

coward ?That was enough for m e ! Before he could sneak

another word I had plunged into the water. I madefor the opposite side of the poo l with all possible haste

,

splashed . the water as loudly as I was able,swam

farther than the Major had swum,and cam e back with

a prettier flower. As I reached the shore,some Kafirs

who had been watching m e clapped their hands,and

exc itedly began to relate som e sad acc idents thathad occurre d at that pool . Only recently, they toldus

, a l ittle Kafir lad, whilst fi lling a calabash- shel lwith water

,was seized by a crocodile and drawn into

the river, never to b e seen again.

On our return to the cam p we were censured byeveryone there for having been so reck less . Our

Prem ier was particularly warm abou t it . He repri

m anded us severely—we deserved to be swallowed bythe crocodiles ! It i s LOW the second time that youhave deliberately, and despite all warnings

,imperi lled

your l ives ; you won’

t be let free a 1711'

c t ime !

THE PREMIER IS UNSELFISH. 185

We could not very wel l defend ourselves , and the

Maj or said to me, when we got aside again,

O ld chap, it is true—we have hazarded m uch ; weought not to be so fool ish again !Well

,

” I replied,

“

you were the cause of it. Itwas you who challenged m e

,and who would have

thought m e a coward ifI did not do as you did ; butwe shal l certainly fal l into a trap som e day if we goon in this way.

”

“ My dear m an, said he,“ I prom i se you I shal l

never do it again ! ”

Before Mr. Bowden parted with us Mr. Rhodes gav ehim a bottle of whiskey . At this action of t he

Prem ier I felt rather displeased, for we had v ery littleof that l iquor left, and I told him so afterwards .Well ,

” said Mr. Rhodes, we have som e oldbrandy s till . Bowden complains of feel ing poorly andfatigued—his colour testifies to it—and i t is only rightthat I should help him .

”

“ Good and well,” I answered ; bu t we need the

whiskey as m uch as he does . Howwil l we get throughthis land of fever i f you give away the little m edic inewe have ?

Oh , he responded, we have enough of old

brandy left .”

“ That may be true, but of what use is it to us ? Iwould not give a cent for it ; whereas the whiskey is

an excel lent fever-preventive,and, m ark my words

,

before we are out ofthis wilderness you wi ll be glad to

get a bot tle ofwhiskey for fiv e pounds .I felt, however, at the sam e tim e, some adm iration

for the Prem ier’s display ofunselfish generos ity towards


a fellow-being ; and I would have encouraged him in

it had I thought it possible that,taking Bowden’s

c ircum stances into consideration,one bottle ofwhiskey

could have saved his life.

At three o’clock we saddled and packed the horses,and at half-past fiv e we arrived at Mandigo

, a Kafir

location named after its chief. There also stood som ehuts occupied by Portuguese and serving as a smal lm il itary outpost.We had not been there long when the aged Mandigo

,

accompanied by some of his under-captains,cam e to

see Mr. Rhodes, the white m an of whom he had heardso much .

“ Is there anything I can offer you ? ” asked theChief.

“ Yes,

replied the Prem ier,everything you can.

What,then ? the Kafirs wi shed to know.

Mealies, beans, peas, Kafir-corn,

flour,fowls ,

cggs,— anything

The Kafirs retired, and a l ittle afterwards a crowdof Kafir women and ch ildren appeared at our campwith everything the Prem i er had asked

,with the

addit ion of pumpkins,sweet potatoes and beer. Of

course, we had to pay for everything . We providedourselves as well as our horses with a big store of food

,

and we hired four of Mandigo’

s Kafirs at one poundeach to assist our boys in carrying the vegetables toChimoyo . Som e of the boys we had brought with usfrom Inham bane began to be sore-footed, so we didnot wish them to carry m uch .

At eight in the morning, whilst a drizzling rain was

falling, Mr. Bowden overtook us . He complained that


Certainly, I would, I replied“ it was my chosen

pony . Why could you not have given away one of

the Montevideo horses instead ?“ Well

,

” said he,

“ there are ponies at Um tal i andhalf-a-dozen a t Sal isbury .

”

That m ay be true, but we are days fromUmtal i and fourteen from Sal isbury .

”

( 189 )

CHAPTER IX .

Annoyance at the hands ofour boys—We pass a Portuguese Lema ;

he travels in s tate—How the natives salute one another

Traces of the t setse-fly— No pleasure in a bamboo forest—Ilose some ofmy b ag

c age—Chimoyo at las t .

THE fol lowing m orning we had to trot about fromone but to another to find our boys, as also the fourKafirs Mandigo had prom ised t o let us hav e. The

chief assisted us in our search , but i t was not beforenine o

’

clock that we succeeded in getting all the

rascals together. It had been against our expresscommand that the Inhamb anes had left our camp and

gone to the huts, and we were very cross about i t, the

m ore so because of the subsequent trouble we had incol lecting them again. As a lesson for the future

,we

dec ided to punish som e of them corporal ly . Accordingly Sam sam and Pikenin

,the leading offenders

,

each received a sound drubbing .

“(hen al l this botherwas over we had our horsessaddled and packed, and

,in the m anner of the

Israelites of old, we j ourneyed forth.

At eleven o’clock we passed a Portuguese Lema, orGovernor, with a train ofKafir attendants . The Lema ,

resting m ost comfortably in a l itter, was being carriedby fourKafirs and followed by about fifty o thers . At


regular interval s fresh hands had to take up the l itter,whilst the “ big Portuguese m an

,

” lying upon his b ackwith a book in his hand, troubled him self abou tnothing ; i f he wanted anything, he had simply toorder and there it was. When the Lema’s train ofnatives saw us they all halted and stared wi th amazem ent at us and our horses . Som e of them

,I dare say,

had never before seen a horse, m uch less a m an uponone for

,if I may trust what I was told, no horse had

ever before wi thin living mem ory passed that way.

The Kafirs were much taken upwith the sight. Theyplaced the Lema down and clapped their hands at rrs

—their usual form of welcom e—bidding. The wordEnglishman I heard m ore than one whisper as theys tood behold ing what m ust have been to them an

impressi ve spectacle The Governor looked v erv

annoyed at the conduct of his servants in putting thelitter down until we had passed ; I suppose he con

sidered such an act prejudicial to his dignity . The

party were com ing from Massi-Kessi .It is an old custom of the Portuguese grandees

travel ling in Africa—a custom now in existence forthree hundred years— to travel in the m anner abovedescribed

,and a very convenient m anner

,I must say,

it is .The way the natives of that part of the world greet

each otherwhen they m eet i s som ewhat singular. Toshake hands, as we do, is a practice unknown to them .

Theirm ode of greeting is m ore elaborate ; they rub

their feet against the ground, look into each other’s

eyes,and clap their hands.

On our present road we passed many a deserted ox


CHAPTER X .

Bartering with Kafirs—Our followers b egin to feel fatigued - I

st ick to my portmanteau in spite of Mr. Rhodes’

s generousoffers—MajorJohnson is charged by a wild ex—v How a Kafir

smokes —A lovely hal t ing-spot .

CHIMOYO,like Mandigo

,offered us everything eatable

he had, and soon a throng of Kafirs, men,women and

children, stood around us with various kinds of y egetables and frui t s . They placed everything down, and

then, as if at a g iven signal,they all clapped their

hands . The m en stood in front, the women and childrenbehind. What struck us as curious about the fem aleschildren aswel l as adults— was the fac t that m ostofthemwore on the nose and l ips a sort of silver plate fixedon those features l ike earrings . It seem ed to m e thatt hose whose faces were thus ornamented belongedto the upper class . But why the women and damselswere so afraid of us I could not understand. Theyappeared glad to see us

,and they looked at us with

the greatest inquisit iveness, but whenever we lookedat them they shel tered behind the men, and as soonas auvone ofus happened to walk round the latter they

(the wom en)becam e seized with fright and ran to their

huts as hard as they could . It was always best topretend no t to notice them . The m en

,however, showed

FO OT—SORE AND WEARY. 193

no signs of fear, and were at any time m ost willing tofetch us wood and water if only we gave them the

remains ofourm ealAs am ongs t the Inhambane Kafirs

, so am ongst these,strong

,fine-buil t men were to be seen—m en large in

l imb, healthy, and created, as it were,for no other

purpose than to serve as outdoor labourers .Our Inhambane boys now began to complain of their

legs becoming stiffas a result ofall the walking. One

after another gave up. Pikenin was already as stiffas a sore-footed goat, and Matokwa as lame as a duck .

Tonre and William ,however, were all righ t still ; b ut

no wonder,for they had the advantage over the Kafirs

ofwearing boots, and they had a horse between themwhich they rode in turn.

We left Chim oyo the following morning at half-pas tsix

,and had in our serv ice, including the natives we

had hired there,no less than twenty-five Kafirs. We

m ade them all carry som ething, their burdens rangingin weight from thirty-five to forty-five pounds. Myportmanteau

,however, weighed over fifty pounds, but

i t was a good strong Kafir whose task it was to carryit . I pitied him though, and I was afrai d the loadwould exhaust his strength , b ut not a word of com

plaint did he utter.

Since the day we had left our first cart behind,

Mr. Rhodes had repeatedly urged me to cast away myportmanteau with al l its contents, for, he said, at

Salisbury he had a large case ful l of cloth ing ofwhichhe would let m e have as much as I should care t o

take ; but I would , of course, not l isten to srrch advice .

The cart-cush ions I had used as p illows every nigh t0


were gone,my overcoat had disappeared, and I was not

going to lose anything more if , I could help it .Besides

,I had m any articles in my portm anteau

that were too valuable to cast away. And what a

laughing-s tock would I have m ade of myself if I wereseen in Mr. Rhodes

’

s clothes— trousers about eightinches too long form e and jackets with sleeves out ofwhich my hands would no t have had a peep ! Then,too

, we had received a telegram at Port Elizabeth tothe effect that two of the waggons we had sent toSalisbury had capsized on the way, that a quant ity ofthe goods was destroyed, and that one of our horseshad gone astray . Well

,for all I knew, Mr. Rhodes

’

s

case with clothing m ight have been amongst the thingsdamaged .

I prom ised my Kafir that i f he carried my portmanteau safely to Umtali I would give him two

pretty kerchiefs. This seemed to make his burdenl ighter. With the exception of two, all our Kafirs

were hired up to Umtali .About two hours from Chimoyo we caught sight of

a large animal, but we could not tell what it was.Riding closer up to it, we found it to be a wild ox .

It was very probably one of the oxen lost there a

month before . We resolved to shoot it, forwe had nota particle of meat left amongst our provisions. For

several days we had not been able to shoot any game,

it being next to impossible to h it a wi ld animal inthat region ofwoods. Traces of gam e were to be seeneverywhere, but the gam e them selves kep t aloof.Now and then we spied an animal , but, just as the

gun was being levelled at it, away it went ! And to


thought it their duty to pursue us, but we seen got ridofthem a couple ofgun-shots gave them such a frigh tthat they quickly turned back with drooping headsand with their long tails swinging between their legs .At fi ve o’clock we arrived at another lovely river,

and there we decided to Spend the night. The waterwas beautiful ly clear; round about it there was goodpasture for our horses, and in every respect the placewas a very convenient one to stop at . The bath wet ook in the cold water was som ething glorious afterthe hot day we had had. We sat under a waterfal land let the sparkling water, running over m oss-coveredrocks, fal l upon us. Was it not delicious We couldhave sat there for hours . The spot itself was a

beautiful one, one of the loveliest, in fact, that I haveever seen. Indeed

,one who has not seen it for him self

can hardly form an idea of its grandeur. On the one

side we were faced by a stair of mossy rocks withglittering water rippl ing between and over them

,and

on the other there was the calm transparent stream

with its verdant margins spotted wi th lovely flowers .Nature here showed it self to us in i ts ful l sublim ity

,

and seldom has my adm iration for her been excitedto such a pitch . We pitched our tent, and, as we

were wont to do every evening (except, of course, whenprevented), we sat down together, enj oyed a smoke,and engaged in a long, j olly chat. As a rule, we took

al l precaution within our m eans to render our l ittle

cam p as safe as possible against lions, but as we now

had twenty-five Kafirs with rrs,and as som e of them

were wel l acquainted with the country as wel l as with

the nature of the animal s dwelling therein, we felt

A LOVELY OOUNTR r. 9 7

pretty secure without fortifying the camp . IVe had

become used to the growl ing of t he king ofbeasts,and

the las t few nights his noise had grown less and less .But to the horrid yelping of the hyeenas there stillseem ed to b e no end. A hungry hyeena near a

camp is an abom inable nuisance ; its alm os t incessantand m ost m onotonous howl ing great ly disturbs one’srest . How different are the sounds heard at the breakof morning

,when the birds of the woods sweetly

welcom e the new day !Before sunrise onWednesday

,the 7 th ofOctober

,we

left “ Crv stal R i ver (a name we gave it), and fromthence our road took us through a lovely tract ofcountry—down one hill and up another, all coveredwith pretty verdure . The grass was often tal ler, fartaller, than our horses .At a small stream we allowed our animals a l ittle

rest, and from there our course wended up the side of

the Moosikaui Ri ver. We halted on the way, tooka bath in the river, and had our breakfast on itsbank . About a m ile from where we s topped we noticeda meal ie garden

,a t the farther end of wh ich stood a

hut bui lt on poles . IVe asked the Chimoyo Kafirsthe reason why the but was bui lt so h igh, and theytold us that, as the m eal ies began to ripen, the apesand baboons round about stole the fruit if nobodyprotected it ; the b ut was elevated not only to enablethe occupier to cast h is eye a t one and the same

tim e over his whole garden, b ut to enable him t o shoutwith a loud open voice over the whole plantation inorder to frighten these rascall y animal s . It oftenhappened

,our inform ants told us

,that l ions

, on hearing


the shouting,made for the place whence the noise

came, and that, when this was the case, the inm ates ofthe hut on poles were as safe as ever. Bu t a l ionwould often l ie under such a hut till late the followingm orning, and it had happened m ore than once thatKafirs, unaware of the presence of the animal , on

descending the poles in the dark to go and drive thethieves out of theirgardens, were caught and devoured .

Next to the stream at which we halted stood a treeon the bark of which the fol lowing was inscribed“ Mosika Riv er, Riv er P ioneer Bridge, 8 Aug. 189 1,

s igned B . B .

” Though I could not make m uch sens e

out of this,i t was plain that t he m an who wrot e i t

was one of t he party who, about three months before,while on their way to Beira wi th a number of ex

waggons, lost al l their oxen—and consequently their

waggons— before they had come within two hundredm iles of their destination. Not less than twelve

abandoned waggons with all their belongings did wepass on the road .


Al l kinds of provisions were obtainable here, so weprovided ourselves and our horses wi th al l that wasnecessary. S traight over against the shop lay the

ground where the engagem ent took place on the 10 th

of May last between forty-eight of the CharteredCompany Pioneers and four hundred and eightysoldiers fight ing on t he Portuguese side (e ighty of

whom were Portuguese, the res t natives), and ended inthe latter taking to fl ight

,leaving twenty of their

number dead on the field. I was shown the exac tpositions the respective arm ies had occupied duringt he encounter they were such as offered the Portuguesea decided advantage. Taking th is fact into cons iderat ion, i t is a disgrace to the Portuguese to have beendefeated by such a handful ofmen. The above accountwas given m e by Mr. Lorenso, a Portuguese gentlemanwho l ives at Massi-Kessi , and who him self had been an

eye-witness of the fight . He assured us that he had

never before fel t so asham ed of his fel low-country~

m en as that afternoon when he saw the four hundredand eighty suffer defeat .

’

It was then that the Kafirabandoned his b ut

,t he shop-keeper his shep, the

soldier his fort it was then that the Pioneers made forthe shop and took as b oOty as much of its store as theyneeded— whence the extraordinary claim sent in bythe Mozamb ique Company . Hayman

"was the Com

m ander of the Pioneers, and Calas Xavier of the

Portuguese. It m ay b e m entioned that VictorMor-ierfrson of SirRobert Morier, British Ambassador at St.

Now Ch iefMagis trate at Buluwayo.

~—Trans .

1‘ He died on the ship T artar, on his way to the Cape inMav ,

1 892 .- Trm rs.

THE PORTUGUESE AND MASSI-KESSI. 201

Petersburg, fought in the Pioneer regiment, and

conducted himself gal lantly .

I asked Mr. Lorenso what caused the Portuguese toretreat so soon.

“ Well,said he,

“the Kafirs always seem to b e

seized wi th fright when the shoo t ing comm ences, and

that makes them take to their heel s .”

“ Why,then I asked, do you employ them to

fight for you“ Oh

,

”he answered,

“ just to have a number offighting m en together. And

, you see,just as fas t as

the Kafirs can flee when we lose, they can pursue whenwe win.

”

Mass i-Kessi has been in the hands of the Portuguesefor the last three hundred years, but one can hardlybel ieve it when one sees the place. Though lim estoneand other bu ilding material are to be found there inabundance, the dwel lings of the Portuguese are no

better than those of the natives ; they are all hutsbuilt of straw ; and though the soil there i s of the verybest for agriculture

,very li ttle of i t i s under cultiva

tion. But the natural beau ty ofthe place arrested ouradm iration. Massi-Kessi l ies between two high hi lls,m idway between which run two fine rivers . Bananasgrow there to perfection ; they are larger and havea better flavour than the best grown in NatalThe t ime cannot b e far d istant when Massi-Kess i

wil l b e a large flourishing town. It is only waitingfor the railway . It i s a crrrious fact that where thetrain brings the white m an

,fevers rapidly disappear.

This has been proved to be the case in certain parts ofSpain, in Italy (especially between Rom e and Naples),


and in Australia ; it has also been m anifested at

Kimberley,Johannesburg

,Pretoria

,Barberton and

Zoutpansb erg .

At hal f-past three we bade Massi-Kessi farewell, andour road now took us through a tract ofcountry wheredenudation had strikingly been at work. In the valleysone could see that the ground had everywhere beencarried away to the extent of from two to three feet indepth , and a t a distance one could see hundreds ofelevations, the accum ulations of the washed-away soil ,now covered wi th luxuriant grass . But s tranger eventhan that it was to notice that all the black turf in thevalleys on this s ide of the Um tali Mountains had beenremoved

, a proof that in centuries past thousands ofmen had been wash ing there for alluvial gold.

At sundown we found ourselves at the foot of theUmtal i Range

,and there we stepped for the night.

Having completed a distance of between twenty and

twenty-five m iles during the day, we felt very tired .

As I m ent ioned before, every night Mr. Rhodes,Major Johnson and I took our repose under a smal loval- shaped tent. Our tent was our best friend . One

ofthe first things we did at every place at which wehalted was to pitch the tent . We never felt perfectlyat ease during the nights, for when there were no wi ldanimals d isturbing us there was always a fear of thosefever-produc ing fogs that so often arise from the dampground . We sorely m issed the three cart cushionswe had cast away on our abandoning the second cart ;they had served Major Johnson and myself as a

m attress . Since the day wehad to part with them we

substituted a large wool len blanket in their stead, but


But what about the ticks ?Ticks be blowed Tonie, William , and the Kafirs

sleep upon the grass every night, and they com plain

less about those insects than we do,despite the pre

cautions we take.

”

“ Well,but why could you not bring the grass

inside the tent ? ”

Because,

”we answered, we knew you would not

l ike it.”

“ Oh, no, answered Mr. Rhodes, “ I have not theleast obj ection. Bring in the grass ! ”

Accordingly we had the grass carried into the tentand had our soft bed nicely m ade up. Soon the roaringof the l ions becam e terrible it was a repetition ofwhatwe had at Muda River. But we had such a largenumber of Kafirs with us— and they were all on the

watch— that we did not feel very uneasy. I’ve had a

good night . I slept til l five o ’clock, when Mr. Rhodesawoke m e. No ticks had disturbed us, and, thankProvidence

, we never slept so badly again as we had

the few nights before.

In the country through which we were now passingwe observed numerous spots where alluvial gold hadbeen dug forby the ancients. All along the sides of therivers there were patches where the ground had beenhollowed out and brought to the rivers to b e washed.

We were now near to the spot where Mr. Theal hadso horribly m et his death a m onth before. He had

come from Umtal i to trade in the districts round about.As night set in, he lay down with a Kafir attendant on each side of him ,

natural ly thinking that incase a lion should tackle them during the night he

THE HORRIBLE EA TE OE MR . THEAL ' 205

would be the safest of the three. It was a quiet night,and no l ions were to be heard , except a few a longdistance off. The Kafirs slept soundly til l the m orningbroke

,when they awoke and m i ssed their master

,

not having the slightest idea as to what had become

of him . Later in the m orning they m et som e fellowKafirs, en route to Massi-Kessi , who told them the

shocking tale that they had passed on their way thehead and feet of a white m an. The horror-strickenKafirs went to see, and they found and recognised thehead of their m aster, Mr. Theal ! Immediately theysped to Massi-Kess i and reported the terrible newsto the authorities there, who at once despatched some

officials to the place where the remains of the m anwere

reported t o be ly ing, and they found the Kafirs’ story

only too true . The unfortunate trader had beendevoured by a l ion. The footprints of the anim alwere traced from the spot at wh ich the head was foundup to where the cart was standing. The two Kafirs

asserted they had heard nothing during the night .Very l ikely the head of the unfortunate m an was

bitten off and his body carried away before he coul dutter a sound .

Incidents of this kind are not a t all of rare occur

rence in that part of the world. Lieutenant S tanley,

one of the Chartered Company’s Pioneers, who j oined

our party in the afternoon, having been sent to us byDr. Jam eson to show us the way across the Um tal iMountains, told us that the Christmas-night before lasthe also slept in the neighbourhood ofwhere we werenow travell ing, and also had with h im two Kafir

attendants. Towards m idnight he was suddenly


aroused by a shriek . He grasped his gun and sprangto hi s feet, bri t too late. The lion had already disappeared with one of the Kafirs, and all that he couldhear was the dismal cries of t he lion’s victim growingfainter and fainter as the anim al receded . The o therKafir

,whowas nowwith the Lieutenant, affirmed every

word h is m aster told us.

But the mos t remarkable and interesting ofadv entures with l ions i s the following. Som e three m onthsago Mr. Selous—I do not recollec t whether he was

alone—ou his way from Um l iwan to Umtali had tospend a night in the wi lds not far from where thetragedies above related occurred . Having choppedsom e poles and branches , he constructed a l ittle b utfor h im self, interlac ing the boughs with grass and

saplings,and leaving a few openings on each side

of the structure through which to fire in the caseof need . Early in the evening he heard som e l ionsgrowl in the vicini ty, but later all was quiet again.

Mr. Selous had wi th him as weapons a rifle, a hatchet,

and a long knife . The gun he placed near to hishead, within convenient reach . He was aware thathe was now in a veritable nest of l ions

, so tocal l it, and that was why he took so muchprecaution for his security . He fel l into a slightslumber

,but was soon awakened by the noise of

some animal in the bushes near by. Retaining hispresence of m ind, he sat as stil l as a m ouse

,and soon

he could faintly discern in the dark through one of hisl ittle b u t windows the form of some big creature.

Slowly he stretched his hand to his gun and drew itnearer ; then, levelling it noiselessly to the black

208 WITH RHODES IN IIIASHONALAND.

CHAPTER XII .

W'

e cross the Um tal i Mountains—A good nigh t’s res t—Our Kafir

boys leave us, b ut Pik enin and Matokwa choose to stick bytheir present mas ters— An accident to Pikenin—J am thrown

into a pool—Our boys frigh ten the Kati r women—A Kafir

burial-place.

AT twenty- three m inutes past fiv e the followingm orning we started on our journey over the Um tal iMountains, the boundary between Mozambique and

Mashonaland— between the land of the Portugueseand that of the Chartered Company. \Ve crossed theSam ba R iver, on the banks of which the banana grewluxuriantly

,and rode down one steep m ountain,

thenanother, then along the Um tal i R iver, which hereflows through a pretty val ley

,and finally (at half

past eight) we arrived at the Um tal i camp, a distanceof about seventeen m i les from Massi-Kessi.Here we m et Mr. Heany, Dr. Jameson, and some

o therwel l-known gentlemen. It was to us a momentofrej oicing when we entered the Umtal i camp. Therewe had huts to which to retire, and the food and drinkwe received were of the very best. What a differenceto what we had the nigh t before ! “fe could now

enjoy a good bed ; no l ion’s roar or hyaena

’

s yelp ing

WE VISIT SOME GOLD REEES. 209

disturbed us ; no rain need we fear and guardourselves against, and no reason had we to doub t our

horses ’ safety .

Umtali is 252 m i les d istant from Beira .

Manika,the district we were now in, i s a magnifi

cent tract of country. Already some 300 white m en

are earning their l iving there. The day after our

arrival we visited several of the gold-reefs in the

district, and also the area marked out for the new

township .

We intended to depart from Um tal i towards ev ening,and, therefore, early in the afternoon we cal led our

Kafir boys together and asked them whether theywished to rem ain at Um tali and work forMr. Heany,who was m ost willing to take them into his employand would pay and feed them well ; whether theypreferred returning to Inhambane ; or whether theywould like to accornpanv us farther. They went aside ,discussed the q uestion am ongst them selves

,and a t

three o’

clock they told us their resolution. Al l o f

the m, excep t two, had dec ided to rem ain at Um tal ifor the present and re trrrn to their homes later on.

P ikenin and Matokwa were the dissentients— theychose to go with us to Capetown. IVe paid al l the

Kafirs what was due to them . To the boy that hadso gal lantly carried my portmanteau I gave threekerchiefs, a string of beads and a pocket-knife

, and healmos t jumped out of his skin

, so pleased was he withthose handsom e presents presents that altogetherdid not cos t m e three sh ill ings .Thewaggon and cart that had been wai ting for us atUm tal i were now got ready. The waggon had harness

P


enough for eight horses, and the cart for four. We

left it entirely in the hands of our driver and reinholder to select the horses and mules that were todraw the vehicles . Tonie, William , Matokwa and

Pikenin were left in charge of the ponieAs I m entioned above, Manika, as far as we saw i t,is a lovely country ; its landscape views— hills, valleysand waters—are very pretty, and, as far as its m ineralwealth is concerned, the fac t that 1950 claims have

already been registered there speaks for i t self. In my

judgm ent the place i s very rich in gold .

We left Um tal i at fiv e o’clock on Saturdav , l 0 th

October. The waggon led the way ; i t was one of the

spring waggons with which we had travelled t o Tul i onour last trip, and which had been sent on from thereto Dr. Jameson at Salisbury .

Our course being downhil l now, our animals couldtrot away at a good speed. We noticed that ourgroom swere rather tipsy

,and we were afra id that, i f we left

them at their posts, ere nigh t our cart would b e

overturned . We therefore halted for a few m inutes,

Major Johnson went over to the waggon and tookits management upon h imself, whilst I replacedthe driver of the cart . After promising the Maj or towait for him at Eight Mile Spruit

,I drove in advance

of the waggon. Handling the reins very cautiously, Isteered clear of all the trees bordering the narrow road ,successfully passed the several spruits that crossed ourway, and reached the Eight Mile safel v . My cart hadlong been outspanned when the Maj or arrived with thewaggon. The bush of one of the fore-wheels of the

waggon had been so ground by friction that it had


when I stood up, hal f confused and as wet as a fish ,

and was received with a roar of laughter.

At the close of the day we stepped at the Um sapi

R iver, and there we passed the night . Though we werenow at another haunt of wi ld anim als, we were not

m uch dis turbed by lions during the night. A fortnightpreviously a travel ler who had outspanned not far

from here walked a smal l distance from his cx-cart atevening, when suddenly the Kafirs he had left at the

cart heard a sort of smothered cry and then all was

quiet again. Never again did those Kafirs beholdtheir m aster. Where he had trodden last the freshfootprints of a l ion were to b e seen.

It was at that same place that the m embers of theCape Comm ission to Mashonaland

,Messrs . Eksteen, de

Waal and Vosloo, had a m onth previous to our arrivalthere shot a l ion. These gentlem en, whilst hunt ing,cam e upon the anim al, and Mr. de Waal and Mr.

Vosloo fired at it almost simultaneously, and woundedit m ortall v . Whether i t was the bul let from Mr.

de VVaal’

s gun or that from Mr. Vosloo’

s that struckthe animal

,remains unsettled each claims that it was

his . Anyhow,the wounded lion disappeared am ong the

tall reeds,and the hunters forbore pursuing, knowing

that wild animals are at their fiercest when injured.

Three days afterwards, however, a transport - riderstopped there, and his nose com ing in contact with a

not very fragrant sm ell, he searched for the obj ectwhence the odour cam e , and found the decaying lionwith a bullet through its back .

We left Umsapi R iver at six o’clock and next outspanned near to a kopje (lit.

“ little head on which

KAEIR WOMEN PAw a sTR IOHEN. 213

was built a Kafir-kraal . At the foot of this k opje therewas a stone wall , bu ilt for the purpose of fortifying thekraal . Shortly after our arrival we began barteringwith the natives of the kraal near by ; we exchangedlimbo and salt for such food-stuffs as m eal ies

,Kafir

corn,Mozam bique and other beans

,Kafir-beer, m eal ,

eggs,fowls

, etc . The m eal ies, beans, rice and Kafir

corn were fetched from earthen vats erected upon thehighest rocks on the little hill . We drove a profit

able business,forwe had brought plenty of limbo and

salt wi th us . If anything struck us about the personalappearance of the Kafirs here, it was their extrem eugliness .Leaving our cart and waggon where we had cut

spanned, we walked towards the kopj e, and at the footof i t seated ourselves under a large wild fig-tree.There we ate and drank , and had a nap, whilstDaniel and Jam es, two boys whom Dr. Jam eson hadbrought with him , and whom we had m ade our

drivers,cl imbed up the rocky kopje to go to the

kraal . Suddenly we heard loud scream ing. We lookedup and saw som e Kafir women standing on the edgesof some precipitous rocky ridges about 150 feethigh ready to jump down. Dr. Jameson at once saw

what the m atter was ; the ignorant Kafir wom en were

fleeing before our boys, who, they fancied, purposedto take them captive . \Vi th al l the force our throatscould produce we shouted to the boys to turn backimm ediately. They heard us and obeyed . Had the

women leaped down those krantzes, they could not buthave broken their l imbs and been killed .

The fig-tree underwhich we sat was ladenwith fruit


both green and ripe, but it was largely in the pos

session of smal l black ants . Under the tree there laya large square rock smooth on the top

, and imm ediately around it were piled upheaps of stones . Whatthese signified none ofus could tel l ; but later on someKafir boys from the kraal cam e to eat figs there

,

and they cleared the mystery from our m ind . It wastheir custom , they told us, to bury their dead underneath rocks and to cover the place overwi th stones toprevent the corpses from being devoured by hyaenas .It can be no light work for the Kafirwomen to carry

water in calabash- shells up to that kraal , an ascent ofabout 200 feet ; and m ost of them have babes tocarry with them— these they t ie on their backs . The

calabashes or,less comm only

,earthen pitchers in

which they carry the water are never borne otherwisethan on their heads. To us

,who had noth ing to carry

but our own weights , it was pret ty tough work to climbup there how those poor creatures m anage to clam berup the steep hill with those burdens surpasses mycomprehension. But what else are the poor souls todo ? They have to secure them selves as far as theypossibly can against the raiding Matabele, and so

have to choose as residences the spots most difficul tto reach .

216 WITH RHODES IA MASHONALAND.

Don’

t tell m e anything, de IVaal, and I shall tel ly ou why you

’ve stopped the cart and waited form e

Well,why ?

” I asked .

Because you wish to tel l m e that you have herechosen forVenter and yourself the site ofyour farm s .

“ Prec isely,

” I replied ; you have guessed well .”

Well,

” he said,

“ I’

v e just been speaking to myfriends in the waggon about the grandeur of the place

,

and I told them that I was sure you would not pass i twithout desiring a slice of it .”

Mr. Rhodes then requested Mr. Duncan,the Sur

v eyor-General of Mashonaland, who was with us j ust

then,to m easure ou t two farm s there

,one forMr. Venter

and one for myself. I am sure that landed property inthat part of the country will soon become very valuable

,

especial ly when the rai lway runs— as i s expected itsoon wil l— between Beira and Sal isbury .

At eight o ’clock we finished the day’s drive

,hav ing

travelled fifteen m iles . Though we saw no b ut near

by,we had not long outspanned when a number of

Kafirs,each with a quantity of vegetable produce

,

stood around us. We were offered— beside m eal ies,

Kafir-corn,beans

,meal

,rice

,pumpkins and poultry

karroo-roots,potatoes

,m i lk and honey. We carried on

a profi table bartering business wi th them,having with

us an over—abundant supply of cartridges,forwhich the

Kafirs were only too glad to exchange their producethey knew how to form ornam ents out of the lead

,and

how to turn the sockets into snuff-boxes . The Kafirs

we were now dealing with were far superior in appear

ance to those we had met the previous day. The

captain of the kraal to which they belonged paid us

HAIR-DRESSING AMONG KAFIRS. 2 17

a visit,and desired a present from us . we gave him

some limbo and a few cartridges,and he was very

pleased with the donation.

Judging by the various articles of food the nativeshad brought us

,and by what I had personal ly observed

and experienced,the country there m ust b e one of the

m ost producti v e in all Africa. Not onl v i s its soilextrem ely fertile, but its climate is healthy and delightful. The cattle one sees there are

,no doubt

,of an

inferior breed , but they are al l in excellent condition.

Som e of our draught-animals had begun to showsigns of weakness

,b ut

,as we now fed them on Kafir

corn and m ealies, they very rapidly recovered their los tstrength .

The way the Kafirs of that place- m ale as well asfemale

,and old as well as young— shave their hair i s

very curious . No razormanufactured at Sheffield couldshave the head cleaner. Whilst one-half of the adult’shead shines like a m irror

,the other half is as thick

with hair as the skin of an unshorn sheep . The headof the child i s entirely hairless ; at least, the hair i sso wel l shaved that nothing of i t can b e seen with thenaked eye, and the l ittle head consequently glitterslike a glass . The men

,however

,do not al l treat their

hair in the same manner : whilst som e deprive the forehalf of the head , from ear to ear, of al l its wool andleave the hair behind undisturbed , others do the veryreverse. A third party delights in the frivolity ofhavingtheir heads clean- shaved on the left side and denselywool led on the right. There are o thers againwho thinkthem selves handsome ifthey shave a wide path throughtheirhair from the forehead to the back of the necl


And there are som e who have their hair cut only inpatches . These natives have nothing else to do the l ivelong day than see that they look pretty—pretty , according to their ideas of beau ty— and to m ake ornamentsfor them sel ves . Their skins

,like their kieries, are

striking for their cuts,carvings, and tattooings.

A great variety of flowers was to be seen there.Mr. Rhodes picked a bunch comprising eight kindswithin the space of a few square yards .Resum ing the journey, we travelled another eleven

m iles and stopped at another spruit,where we ter

m inated the day’s course, having accomplished twent vsix m i les .The sky, black with clouds

,forebode a heavy s torm .

Fortunately, c lose to the spot at wh ich we had cut

spanned st ec I som e Kafir huts in which we could takeshelter, and we were hardly in them when the heavensshock wi th thunder, and l ightning flashed from everys ide. This was followed by a heavy downpour of

rain.

The following m orning (Oc t . 14th) the weatherwasfresh and pleasant . We drove th irteen m i les when

,

owing to one of t he fore-wheels of the waggon againfalling out

,we had t o outspan the v ehicle. Mr. Rhode

Mr. Duncan, and Dr. Jameson,however, proceeded

wi th the cart to Marandella’s kraal, two m i les further,

before they stepped. We made a large fire underneath the defective end of the axle in order to heat it

,

so that we m ight beat a head to it and securelyfix the wheel . Heavy as the waggon was

,Major

Johnson, two boys and I had repeatedly to lift it as

we tried to fit the wheel to the axle . Having no jack


Down he threw himself into the water,but he had

not been away a third of time that I had beenwhen there he was againWhere is the sand ? I asked sarcastically .

At first he tried to make m e believe that the soi lhad washed out of his hand

,but afterwards he con

fessed that he had never touched the bottom . He owedm e a sovereign

,but up to this day I have not seen i t !

CHAPTER XIV.

Marandella’ s Kraal—A touch of fever—More thunders torm s—“Tcgladly enter Salisbury—Misfortunes and losses— Cap tainTyson more generous than is needful—I am smoked out .

WE left the river at a quarter to four and drove toMarandell

’

a’s kraal, where the rest of the party were

wai ting for us. We lectured them severely for havingleft us alone to toi l l ike slaves with the disorderedwaggon, and we wanted to know why they had sent usno food . Wil l iam

,we disco vered, was the m an solel v

to blame for this. He had told Tonie that there wasno necessity for sending food over to us as there wasplenty in the waggon. This falsehood t he lazy vagabond told because he knew that he would b e the one,

if any, who would have to carry the food to us, and

th is the black gentlem an did no t feel inclined to do.“7hat was worse, nothing of the dinner taken at the

cart was left for us, so we had to content ourselveswith bread and b iltong and a l ittle honey that Maran

della gave us.

Marandella’

s kraal is prettily situated . It s tands ona kopje, and all around it the country is exceedinglybeautiful The Kafi i s of that kraal are al l in

good condition ; som e of them are as fat as p igs. and


their cattle and sheep not less so. It was in the

district in which this kraal stands that Mr. Lourensv an der Bij l with twenty-fiv e young Cape Colonistsshortl y afterwards settled

,nam ing the place Lourensdale.

The kraal l ies 1 14 m iles from Umtali and near a smal lKafir station belonging to the Chartered Company.

Meanwhile thick thunder- clouds were collect ingover our heads , and during the night there was

ano ther severe thunderstorm, b ut i t did not on the

whole much disturb the party ’s rest . I,individually

however, had a b ad night, for my head was burningwi th fever.

The next m orning the weather was glorious again,

b ut the road was wet and heavy. We drove twelvem i les and then outspanned . The sky once more foreshadowed storm y weather. At two o ’clock we resumedthe course, and within an hour arrived at anotherstation of the Brit ish South Africa Company. We

had not been there long when another thunderstormrent the atmosphere, and rain came down in torrents.We emp tied two huts of their Kafir occupants

(with their consent,of course), and took possession of

them . It was no easy task to get our evening m ealprepared, b ut we did it as we best could under thecircumstances . Soon we found ourselves on an islet ;there was water al l around our straw house

,and one

had to take off his boots when he wanted to cross overfrom one b ut to the other. Mr. Rhodes, MajorJohnson and myself slept in one hu t

,tiny though it

was. Still feel ing very unwell, I covered myself wel l

with blankets, and perspired heavily during the nigh t .The next morning I felt much better. Medicine was


so that we found ourselves, as it were,in a spacious ’

house with different compartments. I felt quite at

hom e and happy new.

I enquired about the case I had sent to Kimberleythree months before to b e taken upby Mr. Lange and

brought t o Salisbury in one of the waggons . Therewere packed in it a revol ver with a number ofcartridges, a pair of boots , two dozen whistles, twodozen wood-pipes, two dozen pocket-knives, two dozenstrings of beads, hal f a dozen biltongs, six bottles of

pickles,six flasks l iqueur, three flasks of Cape brandy,

one and a half dozen polonies, and a beautiful shot-gunthat had been presented to me by Mr. Rhodes . Mostof these articles , as the reader m ight guess

,I had

intended to exchange for curiosities or eatables withthe natives I expected to m eet on the road . But tomy sorrow I had to learn that the polonies had turnedputrid during their transportation, and that the

gaseous vapour arising from them had total ly destroyedmy precious gun with rus t . It was a gun of wh ich

I had been proud , and with which I had hoped to

enjoy m uch shooting. I had to throw it away now

l ike a piece of wood as utterly useless . Al l the

happiness I had felt at having come to Salisbury and

m et some friends was more than counterbalanced bythis sad discovery. There were, however, more thanhalf-a-dozen rifles and shot-guns in the waggons, andthis consoled m e in a smal l degree . Several of theother artic les were also destroyed.

Meanwhile Cap tain T . Tyson had prepared us a

Splendid d inner ; but I was sorry to find that hehad invi ted so many to take part in it and to hear

A MISUNDERSTANDING . 225

that he had been going on in that way for three weeksrunning, for I was afraid that our provisions would run

short ere we reached the end ofour j ourney . We hadstill to travel som e 1200 m iles in a land about whichwe knew, as yet, exceedingly l ittle. What also annoyedm e was to see how fast the wh iskey that Mr. Langeand I had bought at Capetown to serve us on our

journey was being consumed .

Wel l , after dinner I went to bed, and I was the firstof our party to do so

,though the others were no less

tired than m yself. I was pretty sound asleep when,

between eleven and twelve, Captain Tyson cam e intothe waggon in which I was lying, and I awoke .The Captain undressed him self, l it his pipe, took a

book in his hand,and began to read in b ed. Well,

I had not the slightest objection to his sleeping nextto m e

,for there was plenty of room for two, but what

I was opposed to was the burning of a candle bymy side and th e smoking. Being as yet very l ittleacquainted with the gentleman

,I did not wish to

disturb him,m uch less quarrel with him ,

so I adoptedanother plan ; I quietly stood up, put on my boots,and stepped out ofthe waggon.

“ Where are you going ?”asked Captain Tyson.

Oh,it’s all right ! was all I answered .

I cal led Tonie and asked him where’

my rug and

pillows were .“What do you want to do with them ? exclaimed

the Cap tain out of the waggon ;“ I can let you have

half-a-dozen.

”

Well, thanks !” I replied,

“ let me hav e them ,

“

t hen.

”


Bu t,he asked, rather surprised ,

“ what do youwant to do with them ? ”

“ I’

m going to lie under the tent, I told him ;“ I

would a thousand times rather l ie there and enjoyfresh air than here and inhale nothing but sm oke andhave a. candle burning by my s ide.

The good man immediately begged my pardon forhaving disturbed m e

,and desired m e to return into

the waggon,which I did. He laid down his pipe,

turned the smoke out of the waggon by Opening a flap,blew out the candle

,and once more I enj oyed a

pleasant sleep.


speaking, a very large one. I could hardly bel ievemy eyes when I saw the imm ense store of groceries itcontained, and not less surprised was I to behold thestock of ploughs

,picks, spades, shovels, galvanised

iron, and other such articles. There were also storedthousands of bags of flour and m eal ies, and as manycases of biscuit, sardines, pickles, potted meat, and

what not .As I cast my eye over the town, I could not help

marvelling at the sigh t . “ Is this the place,

” Ithought

'

to myself,“ wh ich Major Johnson and his

Pioneers cam e to only twelve m onths ago and found

an abode of the l ion and the hyaena ? ” Wonderful !A year before the place was a lonely wilderness ; nowit was a busy town, and on its way to becom e an

extensive city.The great maj ority of the inhabitants of Salisbury

are speculators and tradesm en. The actual digger isnot to be seen in the town ; he is to be m et with at

variousplaces in the country outside.Before we cam e to Sal isbury we had been told bysome that great dissatisfaction prevai led in the townowing to a general scarcity of food, and that an

insurrect l on had broken out amongst its citizensagainst the Company, but this report we found to beincorrect. Not of food, but ofdrink there was a want.It i s true

,however, that there were som e discontented

spirits at Sal isbury,and these new cam e to the

Managing Director of the Chartered Com pany and

tried to make him believe that they were very nearlystarved, not having been able for a long time to obtainanything but meal ie porridge.

THE PREMIER SPEAKS OUT. 229

Well, Mr. Rhodes answered them, I know thatwhen the rivers were full the waggons could not cross,but I could not help that. You certainly cannotexpect to be already provided wi th roads

,telegraphs,

bridges,post-carts

,et c. , all within the short space

of twelve months . You hav e any am ount of l inengoods

,beads

,and such -l ike articles, have you not

Yes,

”was the reply but we can

’t eat them .

Well,

”the representative of the Chartered Com

pany rej oined,“ i f you were really hard up for food,

why did you not take them to the Kafir kraals in theneighbourhood and exchange them for eatables

,as we

did on ourway ?”

They felt rather in a corner, and had hardly anythingto say.

“ Every kraal, continued the Premier,“ i s stocked

with m ealies,m eal, rice

,pumpkins, beans and eggs.

What m ore do you want ? N0 , he concluded, “ youragitation has not arisen from want of food

,but from

som ething else : it is want of liquor that displeasesyou !Soon all the grumbling was at an end and all seem ed

satisfied . What greatly went against their argumentswas the fact that the town had a sufficient supply ofgroceries just then to last the population a very longtim e, and that a large quantity of l iquor had j ustarrived . If they did not have enough before

,they

had m ore than enough now. However,to do them

justice,I must adm it it i s very hard for one who has

been used to enjoy a drink at his meals to go withoutit, especial ly in a country like Mashonaland . I knowthis by experience ; whiskey and water, wine, bran'ly,


or beer, neverwere more welcome to me than in thatcountry .

As on the night before, so again, a large party was

invited to take dinner with us. The recollection of

my son’s death

,j ust twelve months before, made m e feel

low-spirited that evening, so I withdrew m yself earlyfrom the gay company and betook myself to mywaggon.

I had no desire to spend my tim e with the Sal isburycommanders

,colonels

,captains, l ieutenants, sergeants

and o ther ofl’

ice-bearers ; besides, I cared b ut little tosee how our food and drink were being consum ed bystrangers . I was m ore than once greatly annoyed at

Salisbury,not only at the way our provisions were

being wasted,but at having to spend my tim e with a

lot ofmen I had never seen before and knew nothingabout. Every Johnny to whom I was introduced wasa m ajor

,a commander

,a captain, a colonel, a lieutenant

or a sergeant, but comm on soldiers I sawnone. Thoset itled gentlemen earn large salaries—for what Icannot tel l .A couple of days previous to our com ing to Salis

bury a waggon arrived there with som e cases of

champagne . The l iquor was imm ediately removed toa

'

certa in bar-room, and a certain gentleman pretty wel l

known at Salisbury,hearing of i t, went to that bar

room,stopped in it all day, and emptied no less than

seven bottles, for each of which he had to pay them odest sum of five pounds ; his stom ach thusreceived £35 worth of l iquor in one day. Sim i larexcessive drinking I myself witnessed on the roadbetween the Orange R iver and Kimberley when therai lway line was being laid there .


When we got up next morning the first thing wedid was to go and see whether there were any freshtraces of l ions near the waggon. We found none.The only new foot-prints to be seen were those o

f

hyaenas—that dreadful nuisance of the night .Alter partaking of coffee, we left at six for the

Mazoe Valley, a beautiful and most fruitful b it of

country. Arrived there, we outspanned. On bothsides of the extensive val ley high hills rise

, and a

number of Mashona kraals is to be seen on them .

The inhabitants have fine gardens laid out in the valesbelow, where Kafir-corn, meal ies , pumpkins, beans andother vegetables thrive to perfection. A lovelystream runs through the valley

,and on both sides of

i t the soil i s as fit for agriculture,in my judgment,

as in any other part of the world . The plough m ay

be put into the soil at almost any part of the valleyand drawn along in a straight l ine for m i les wi thoutbeing lifted. Mill ions ofbags ofm ealies

,grain, beans,

peas, potatoes, sweet-potatoes, etc ., could be producedthere yearly.Having allowed our oxen to eat as much as their

stomachs could carry, at noon we put them in harnessagain and drove on until we came to the tent of theComm i ssioner of the Mazoe Gold Fields

,where we

stepped and outspanned.

Shortly afterwards som e Kafirs appeared at our

waggon with a fewhundred of as pretty lemons as everI had seen. We bought a hundred for a bagatelle

, and

learnt that they had been picked from trees not farfrom there. We went to see the Gold Comm issioner

,

and he informed us that thousands of lemon-trees

THE LAND OF OPHIR ! 233

were growing on the banks of the Mazoe R iver (a

tributary of the Zambezi), and he expressed it as h is

firm conviction that the Phoenicians of old had introduced them there ; and the undisputed fact that the

Mazoe Gold Fields had been worked by thousands in

past ages streng thene d his statem ent . He was certain

that Mazoe was the part of Africa from which KingSolom on had obtained his gold . To convince us ofit, heshowed us the skul l of a man

’s head which he had

dug out from som e débris, and which, judging from

its formation, was undoubtedly that of a wh ite man.

The Mazoe Gold Fields l ie about thirty m i les north of

Sal isbury and eighty from Tete, a l ittle Portuguesetown situated on the Zambezi.At four o’clock we took a bath in the river, and,

an hour later, we walked to the lemon-trees. Theywere a sight worth seeing. Countless trees, smal las well as big, old as well as young, and al l

heavily laden wi th fru it, adorned the Mazoe’

s banks .Whether i t was the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, or

the Portuguese, who introduced the lem on there, Icannot tell but i f there is one thing certain about it,it is this

,that it was the whiteman who had introduced

it . Equally certain is it that the gold m ines therehad been worked in previous ages by white nations .

234 WITH RIIODEs IN MASHONALAND .

CHAPTER XVI .

Lord Randolph Churchil l—An ancient gold-seeker Politicaldiscussions—J grow warm , and give the English ex-Chancellormy v iews without fear or favour—The Blue Rock Reef—Dr.

Jameson and I inspect an old m ine—Lord Randolph prefersto prepare his own breakfast .

TOWARDS evening Mr. Rhodes, Lord RandolphChurchil l , Mr. Borrough, Dr. Jam eson and Dr. Harri sal so arrived there. They had come wi th a cart drawnby four horses. The two doctors were shown t he skull,of which I have made m ention, and both of them ,

after carefully exam ining it, declared it to be thatof a European orAsiatic— certainly not of an Africannegro. It had been found in the Rothsch ild Mine

,at

a depth of 35 feet. It was in that same m ine that,shortly after the discovery of the skull

, a human

skeletonwas found, which Mr. Bent m inutely exam ined,and pronounced to b e that of a European. Som eanc ient instruments were al so found there .As evening set in we drew the waggon and the cart

close together, and spread the sheet of canvas we hadbrought with us o ver the two v ehicles . We were thusprotected from dew

,and were com fortably housed .

After supper Lerd Randolph began to express his


A hot discourse now ensued . My opponent defendedh imselfas bes t he could

,but his statements met wi th

the approbation of none present. When I told him a

few facts about the Cape Colonial farmers, he said,It was not the Colonial farmers I criticised.

”

But,

” I asked,did you not distinctly say in that

letter of yours ‘the South Africanfarmer and i s not

the Cape Colony in South Africa“ Yes,

” he replied ' “ but it was the farmer of theTransvaal I meant.Well

,do you mean to say that the farmer of the

Transvaal does not come up to the farmer of Ireland,

England, or Scotland ?”

Well,

” said he,I described what I had seen.

If you did,I retorted, you would not have had

m uch to describe . I know a gentleman who in 1882

gave a description of Holland. He crossed over fromEngland to Holland, sailed up the Maas, landed at

Rotterdam , and there got into an express train boundfor Berlin. He travel led with it to Utrecht, thence toArnheim

,and

,before he had spent m ore than three or

four hours in the Netherlands, he found him self inGermany. He then travelled to some other countrieson the Continent, never again sawHolland, except onthe m ap, perhaps, and a couple of m onths later hearrived at Capetown, where he declared he had seenevery country in Europe and had found none in

such a b ad state as Holland ; all that had struck hisnotice there was mud and water; the ground wasuntilled, and the grass only served to keep the crews

alive in winter ! Well, you remind m e of that gentleman. You seem to know nothing ofSouth Africa ; you

THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED . 237

are entirely ignorant as to what South African farmersare

,and it appears that, though you have passed over

a portion of their country, it has never been vourobject to come in contact with the people .

”

NO sooner had I done speak ing when our goodPrem ier took the word, and

, gently though forcibly,tackled the noble Lord

,bringing to his notice how

much evil he had wrought through the articles hehad written

, and how he was busy stirring up hatredbetween the rival races in South Africa, and addingthat the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer of Englandwas the last m an from whom he had expected that.The stubborn man

, however, would not give in,

though not a single l istener agreed with anything hesaid . He was beaten out of the field altogether. Ihope the lessons he received wi ll do him good .

It was late when we went to b ed. Twice in thenight our horses were frightened by hyaenas .Having taken our coffee the fol lowing m orning

Randy having drunk the coffee he him self had prepared—Mr. Rhodes, Lord Randolph and Dr. Harris,in company with the Gold Comm issioner, went to theBlue Rock Reef ; and they were surprised on arrivingt here, to find the reef “ pitched out ,

”

i.e. ,run to its

end. Mr. Perkins, the gold expert, (who had com e

along with Lord Randolph ,)and the English nobleman,

both of whom seem ed greatly interested in the reef,were qu ite upset at the discovery, so m uch so thatneither of them took any interest in anything else forthe rest of the day.

Whilst they were looking at the Blue Rock Reef,

Dr. Jameson and I went with a few Kafirs to a


m ine about hal f an hour’s walk from our waggon.

Arrived there, the doctor was the first to descend it.

He stepped into a bucket and was lowered into them ine by m eans ofa rope and pulley to a depth of one

hundred and nine feet. I, meanwhile, stood waitingfor him outside. He was soon out again, and expressed much pleasure at what he had seen. I then

got into the bucket . The poles to which the pulleywas attached bent a l ittle as I went down, but Ireached the bottom safely. To my surpri se, Iobserved down in the m ine , at a depth of m ore than a

hundred feet, an old, worn cav ity in the ground, theremnant of an ancient tunnel ; and I found that the

diggers had sunk a shaft from the top ofthis old pieceof tunnel and had struck the prev iously-worked goldreef, a reef abou t four feet bread. I was greatlyinterested in i t, and my thoughts were far away as Ilooked around m e and remembered that I was standingin a m ine which so many thousands of years ago hadbeen worked by the people ofthe great King Solomon—at least, so th ink the best authorities .“7 c returned. to our camp

, and nex t drove to

Rothschild’s Gold Mine, of which Mr. Bell was themanager. We stopped with in a smal l distance of

the m ine and took breakfast. At a quarter pasteleven,

Mr. Rhodes,Lord Randolph and the Gold

Commissioner also arrived there, but Dr. Harris was

not wi th them . He had lost his way. We knew thatLord Randolph would be hungry

, so we had a goodm eal ready for him ; i t was warm and well prepared.

“ What have you got there ?” he asked .

A fine breakfast ! ” answered Mr. Lange. “ We


CHAPTER XVII.

The Rothschild Mines—Output of gold—How Lobengula treatedhis advisers—Traces of the Phoenicians —Lemon- treesCrossing the Hunjani River—Hunt ing the Setsieb ies buck sI prefer t o shoot nothing to being shot—We have to return

empty-handed.

NEXT we vi sited the Rothschild Mines lying at thefoot of a hill

,and surrounded by dense m im osa trees .

There were three distinct reefs, and each was suppliedwith its own shaft. The shafts were from thirty-fiveto sixty feet deep . One of the m ines particularlyarrested our interest. It had been discovered byMr. Bel l he had noticed a little Opening in the groundthere, and at once surm ised that there was an old m ineunderneath . His conjecture proved correct . Sinkingt shaft he struck upon a rich little reef nine inchesthick at a depth of twenty-fiv e feet. He followed it

,

and, ten feet deeper, found its thickness increased tot wo and a half feet . In this m ine also were to b e seenold tunnels and other excavations made by the m inersofdays long pas t— in al l probabil ity by the Phoenicians .These people had evidently considered it waste of timeand trouble expending labour on a vein only nineinches broad

,not knowing that if they followed it '

LORENGULA’

S MURDER OUS METHODS. 241

a little farther they would find i t grown to thrice thatwidth . I can attest to the richness of this m ine

,for

I m yself brought a piece of its quartz to Capetownand had it exam ined by Governm ent analysts, whodec lared it to contain no less than 1 7 ozs . of gold tothe ten.

The other reefs,too, were broad and rich . Dr.

Jameson and I v isited al l the m ines,and we had ev erv

reason to b e pleased with what we saw. The Prem ier,

also,was highly satisfied . Lord Randolph uttered not

a word ; he was afraid, I dare say, to expose himself,for there was already on i ts way to England a letterof his to the Daily Graphic, wherein he condemnedMashonaland as far as its auriferous character was

concerned. If his chosen, confidential friend, Perkins,had now been wi th him he would have had some one

to whom to confide his feelings ; but as that gentleman was not there, his lordship was wise enough toremain quiet.We had the horses saddled and the vehicles inspanned .

Dr. Jam eson and myself drove ahead in the cart ;Mr. Rhodes, Lord Randolph and Mr. Heany followingon horseback, whilst Mr. Lange came on behind withthe waggon.

Dr. Jam eson told me that Lobengula, the notoriousMatabele king, had the yearbefore put his chief induna

(adviser) to death , because i t was by the latter’s advice

that the m onarch signed the Concession to the Chartered Company. The unfortunate counsellorwas slainl ike a dog, his wife and children maltreated, his grainforfeited to the despot, and his cattle— seven thousandhead— added to the king

’s stock. It took severalR


days to bring the grain over from Luehrs kraal (thekraal at which the induna was slain) to Buluwayo.

We were back at Salisbury a l i ttle before night.

On our way thither we descried a smal l camp in thedistance, and learnt that the Count de la Panouse washav ing his temporary residence there. He was prospecting the land . The Count visited us at Salisburyt he same evening . He told us that the Mazoe Riverflowed close by his camp , and that he was everyright being molested by l ions, some of which had

already carried off three oxen of his, two goats, five

dogs,four fowls, and a few lambs . Only the night

before there had been a l ion at his camp . The animal

at first made for a hut in which an aged Kafir wassleeping, put its nose through the shutter of thelit tle window and struggled to get in. The poor old

chap inside did not know what to do ; helpless hestood there and in the greatest anxiety. The l ion,fa iling to force an entrance, withdrew fora while, andthe Kafir seized the opportunity to cross over to

another b ut ofhis. There he discovered that the only

pet he had possessed, a fai thful l i ttle dog, had beendevoured by the dreaded burglar. The l ion returned tot he hut, but, finding its attempts to enterit unsuccessful,uttered som e loud growls and retired.

The Count also told us that hundreds of lem on-treeswere growing on the river sides near to his temporarydwelling, that he at present had five bags of lemons inh is house

,and that his wife was making lemon-juice

from them . He, also, felt certain that the first lemon

trees on the Mazoe had been planted by m en from the

northern hem isphere ; so, too, were the orange-trees


Having Spread the canvas over the waggons, whichwere standing in the cool shade of som e large trees, we

all lay down under it for a nap, after wh ich we hadcoffee.At four o’clock Mr. Rhodes, Dr. Jameson, SergeantJames and I had our horses saddled, and we went outhunting. We cam e across three wild pigs, and som e

red-bucks and riet-bucks, but we would not shootat them

,for we were desirous rather to aim at som e

setsieb ies-bucks, deer as large as donkeys, which weknew were t o be found there , and wh ich we did notwish to frighten. Just as we were crossing an

elevation,we caught sight of som e fifty of these

bucks grazing a l ittle distance in front of us. On

seeing us they m ade off bewildered, scatteringinto a number of l ittle groups

,but they ran so

clum sily that they seemed to have difficul ty in

getting along . However,they gave such long strides

that, contrary to appearance, they moved along veryswiftly . We pursued them

, and bom bom the shotscam e from al l sides

,but all in vain. With a steady

gallop, though with no apparent hurry,the animals

gradually gained distance. Some bullets from the gunsof my companions flew past my head. Heavens ! ” Ithought wi th alarm

,

“ this won’t do ! I held in myhorse and allowed the excited hunters to pass m e by .

“ Rather shoot nothing,” I thought,

“ than be shot ! ”

At last the excitem ent was over and the bucks hadfled. All the sportsm en assembled again and each hadsom ething exciting to tell

,but none could say, I shot

one of them .

” I also had something to tell— not that Ivery nearl v shot a buck, b ut that I was very nearly

EMPTY GAME BA GS. 245

shot likea buck. Real ly,more than one bulletwhistled

past my ear, and I still shudder to think of it.The sun set and we were still far from ourwaggons.

No tim e was to be lost . It was a pity that we had notsighted the game earl ier than we did. With a feelingof shame at not hav ing overpowered a single buck, wereturned to our camp, and it was pretty dark when wereached it. Mr. v an der Bijl and Mr. Lange had a

hearty laugh at us for returning with an empty b ag .

Captain Tyson,however— though he also smi led—I

noticed, was disappointed at our ill-luck

,for he

remembered how I had foretold at Salisbury that hewould regret, ere we reached the end of our j ourney ,h is lavish hospital ity at that place .


CHAPTER XVIII.

Hunting again—ThePremierNimrod this time—I shoot a crocodile-Mr. Scot t

’s narrative—Our oxen m issing, and we are al l

out ofhumour—A tropical storm .

EARLY the following morning we—t-he sam e partyas the day before—went out for another hunt. Wepassed som e quaggas, wild dogs, wild pigs, red-bucksand riet-buck s, but left them all in peace. Ultimatel ywe caught sight of a group of setsiebies bucks.Immediately on seeing us they took to fl ight .Resolved

,however

,not to return to ourwaggons before

we had at least felled one of their number, we chasedthe animals for a distance offive or six m iles, when theRiverHunjani, a tributary of the Zambezi, preventedthem from fleeing any farther. NO alternative wasleft them but to force theirway back if possible, andthis was the course they adopted . But just as theywere turning the Prem ier and Dr. Jam eson fired at

them,the form er succeeding in shooting one through

the shoulder. When I saw the bucks turn back Isprang from my horse and awaited them ,

and I had notwaited long when fivepassed m e at a distance ofaboutfifteen yards. I pulled the trigger, but, to mydisappointment and annoyance, the shot failed to go


risking one’s life to swim across even the narrowestri vulets .At four o’clock our vehicles were inspanned again,

and after journeying four and a half hours we m et

Mr. Kirton with his waggons,one of which was under

t he control ofMr. John Scott . These gentlemen hadjust unteam ed their oxen. We outspanned close tothem .

Mr. Scott re lated to us a l ittle of h is interestingAfrican experiences . In company with two othergentlem en he set out from Sal isbury

, on the 1 1 th of

January last, for Tete, a small Portuguese town on theZambesi, in order to procure provisions for the Pioneersof the Chartered Company. One of his companions

(Smith) contracted fever on the way, and died . AllMr. Scott’s attendants (natives) then deserted him ,

buthe was fortunate enough to procure the services of astrong-built

,handsom e young Kafir six feet tall . By

this boy he was led through grass ten feet h igh and

always damp at the stalks, since, owing to itsheight. and density of growth, the sun had very littlepower to evaporate the m oisture there deposited. Bythis means he caught fev er on the Lucia R iver, a

two—days’ journey from Tete, to which place he hadto be carried back . There he was carefully attendedto

,and soon afterwards he was as well as ever.

Shortly after his illness he purchased for the

Chartered Company, from an Indianm erchant, sufficientgoods for two hundred men to carry, and from thistrader he learnt

,to his surpri se, that the Kafir that

had so nobly attended him (Scott) when he becam eill had sold to him (the trader) seventy-seven ounces

PROGRESS AT TETE. 249

of alluvial gold which he had brought with him from

Mashonaland. The lndian had a large supply of ivory ,ostrich feathers

,hides

,nuts

, gold, and a variety of

other articles, which he was then about to send to themouth of the Zam bezi by a small vessel .After som e delay Mr. Scott returned to Mashonaland ,successfully accom plishing his errand

,though not

wi thout having undergone a very trying journev .

Tete,Mr. Scott told us

,had between forty and fifty

white inhabitants, and was provided with seven or

eight stores . The Governor of the place , an enterprising m an

,had turned it into an attractive Spot .

Tet e lies about 250 m i les from Sal isbury and 260 fromthe m outh of the Zambezi . A swift boat, the TurnWheeler, runs at frequent interval s between Tete and

the coast , touching at stations on the banks of theriver, where rapid progress is being made in sugar plantat ions. Mealies

,pumpk ins

,potatoes, rice

,etc., also

thrive there.

\Ve continued the j ourney the following m orning toKlip R iver and in the clearwaterwe had a refreshingbath . After the bath we had our breakfast, and afterbreakfast we went for a hunt . Meeting, however, withno large gam e

, we seen again returned to ourwaggons .The distric t in which we were now travelling has

lately been the scene of many a tragedy ; severa lhuman beings and a comparatively large number of

oxen and mules have there been torn to pieces bylions . Strange to say, however, we neither saw nor

heard a single animal of that description.

We had intended to resume the journey at half-pastthree ; but neither ox normule was to be seen when


we wanted to inspan. Mr. v an der Bij l saddled hishorse, Mr. Jam es h is, and I m ine, and we set out in

different directions in search of the strayed animal s.We also sent our Kafirs on the sam e errand . Aftera long and tedious search , we one by one gave it up asuseless and returned to the waggons, where we foundto our j oy that the animals had already been discovered by the Kafirs. Ful ly an hour and a half didwe waste in this quest.At half-past five we were able to m ove on again ;

but the party was altogether out of humour. Beepingand Jas

, t he former rather unjustly, each received a

thrashing for not having kept better watch over theanimal s .We had hardly been on ourway half an hour, when

there was every indication in the sky ofan approachingstorm

,and soon the l ightning flashed on every side.

Ev ery m inute the weather grew worse, and the oxenbecame so seized with fright that it was with thegreatest difficulty that we compelled them to proceed .

Stil l the storm increased in violence. Peal after pealofthunder shook the sky above us, and every m omentwe expected the l ightning to strike our animals, i f notourselves . TO add to our m isfortunes, rain now cam e

down in torrents, and much thwarted our progress .At seven o’clock it was so dark that we cou ld hardlysee our hands before our eyes. O f course, we haltedthen.


grass grows in abundance,a grass which horse, ox, ass,

goat, and sheep all deem a luxury, and i s mostnourishing.

The cl imate in that part of the country is all thatcan be desired. Though the place is cal led by somea lion’s nest

,not a single lion dis turbed us during al l

the time we spent there . Heavy and destructive windsare unknown

,and so are snow, sleet and frost .

Now and then a heavy rain would fall—accompaniedby thunderand lightning perhaps— that was al l . Taken

al l round, the cl imate i s excellent. Drought is nu

known in that region. Should the grass upon the hillsbecom e dry, the valleys m ay be resorted to ; thesenever fail . With m any a veteran hunter

,who had had

much experience in Mashonaland, did I converse, andeveryone assured m e that oxen in that land wouldgrow beautifully fat ; and, I may add

,that I did

not meet a single team of oxen in Mashonaland b ut

what was in excel lent condition. Transport-oxenoften enter that country thin and ugly

,but they are

always fat and pretty when they leave it.NO doubt many of my readers wi ll think that I am

speaking too highly in praise of the country ; but whatI have stated above is the perfect truth, and myfel low-travellers will bear me out ; so also will Mr.

Ferreira of Uitenhage,Mr. HermanMerkel ofSomerset

West,Mr. Kirton ofMarico, Mr. Botha ofHeidelberg,

and many others— m en who have themselves seen theland .

Not far from where we were now travelling livea Kafir tribe (the Makalaka), who eat the largestand fil thiest hair-worms they can catch from the tops

PLUGKY PIONEERS. 253

of trees . They m ake a sort of pap—pudding they

would preferme to cal l it— Of them , and treat it as a

dainty .

At half-past five we arrived at Fort Charter, a smal lfort built on a high elevation. Lieutenant Cordingtonwas the commander here. Five waggons were standingoutspanned near to the fort ; they belonged to Mr.

Lourens v an der Bij l, who, imm ediately when henoticed ourwaggons, cam e to m eet us . He invited usto his waggons

,and t he invitation was of course ac

cepted. Arrived at his camp, we were heartily cheeredby Mr. v an der Bij l

’

s young companions . The boysseem ed all in the best of spirits . We spent twopleasant hours in the tent of the m uch-esteem edtrekker, who entertained us with an interesting accountof his experiences on his j ourney to Mashonaland .

He had been on the road now for five months and hadnot yet reached his destination. Just a week pre

v iously, he was grieved t o tel l us, he had to bury one of

the youthful twenty -fiv e Colonials that he had broughtwith h m ; but, despite the num erous m isfortunes theyoung imm igrants had had to contend with

,we found

them joyful and in high spirits . No t a word of

complaint d id we hear from their l ips ; with everything they were satisfied . Meat or no meat, it was allthe sam e to them : so long as they could get theirm ealie porridge, they were quite content. It was a

great pleasure to m e to m eet them . We advisedMr. v an der Bij l not to settle until he had come to

Marandel la’s district,a m agnificent piece of country

be tween Salisbury and Um tali— the district in whichI had the farm s m easured out for Mr. Venter and


myself. Mr. v an der Bij l took our advice . His settlement to-day bears the nam e ofLourensdale.

We left Fort Charter at two o’c lock the fol lowingm orning, and halted in a small valley where therewas fine grazing for our draught animals . Shortlyafter breakfast we were m et by a gang of Kafirwomenand children, who were eager to barterwith us. Theyhad with them—besides a large quantity of vegetables—beer, fowl s and eggs . It was a pleasant hour forCaptain Tyson. The poultry and eggs he was par

t icularly happy to obtain, for he was aware that our

provisions were rapidly growing less, and he had

already seriously been troubling his m ind about it,

the m ore so since we had so frequently cautioned himto b e less extravagant. Wel l , he now did livelybusiness with the natives, and the latter were as happyto get our sal t and l imbo as we were to rel ieve them oftheir produce.At four o ’clock, just aswe were ready to advance

again, Mr. Selous,the fam ous huntsman, who had

already spent nine years in the interior of SouthAfrica, and whom we had ardently been longing tomeet, m ade his appearance. He had come fromVictoria, and had brought with him our newspapersand letters addressed to that place .Allowing ourwaggons to proceed, we decided to stopbehind for a whi le wi th our cart and riding-horses inorder to have a long interviewwith the great Mashonaland pioneer. We offered him some refreshments, and,seating ourselves by his side, we l istened with thekeenest interest tO all he had to tell

, and we were

so absorbed in the vivid account he gave of his


woman ? The adventure Mr. Selous had at the footof the Umtal i Mountains I have already recounted ;but he had several other interesting lion stories to tel lus . On one occasion— it was last June— a white m an

,

whilst on his way to Sal isbury with three donkeys, wasapproached within a short distance of that townsh ipbyfour l ions . The terrified trav eller had just sufficienttime to climb into the nearest tree, and whilst he wasS itting in i t he saw how one of his donkeys was being

caught and devoured by the l ions . Nothing of the

poor animal being left, the lions left the place and hethe tree . He arrived safely at Sal isbury, but he neveragain saw anything of any ofhis donkeys.At the close of the day we arrived; at Incasithe,

wh ich lies 5000 feet above the sea- level . We had

travelled thirty m iles that day. This was rather too

much of a good thing, for it told considerably uponthe animals .

( 257 )

CHAPTER XX .

Remarks on Mashonaland—The natives’ fear of the Matabele—Aprofitable exchange

— The houses of the Mashonas—Theirfondness for rats as food, and surprise that we do not Share itHow the climate compares with other parts ofSouth Africa .

WE continued our journey on the plateau we had

entered upon at ours tart the previous m orning, bu t the

road was now sandy and heavy.

The high, andconsequently healthy, veld ofMashonaland covers an area of about 150 by 400 m iles

, and,

roughly Speaking, it could be divided intofarm s

,each containing 2000 morgen, i.e. nearly 4000

acres .I cannot speak of Selous

’

s road but in the highestpra ise. The course its designer has given it cannotbe improved Upon even by the m ost skilful of

engineers . The views from that road over the h i lls,

plains, valleys and rivers are truly grand . Now and

then we Spied some game, but none near. Game,as a

rule, keep far from the high road .

We generally rode on horseback during our journeyexcept during the earl iest part of the day, when westill lay warm beneath ourblankets in our waggons, but

even at that inconvenient time we had often to m ount3


our horses,as

,for instance, when the waggons came to

a spruit ; we preferred to m iss a l ittle sleep, and takethe trouble of riding on horseback through the drift

,

rather than to rem ain in the waggon and stand thechance of being knocked about in i t or flung out

al together. Since the day on which Mr. Lange upsettwo of our waggons a t the Nionetse, when on the roadto Salisbury, he was very cautious— and he had made

us no less se—when com ing to a Spruit. As a rule theair was pleasantly cool at night. In fact, on the

whole, we had no reason to complain of the weather.

A few generations back Mashonaland was in the

possession exclusively of the Mashonas . Between the

years 1810 and 1812 a large band of Zulus left theirnative land and m igrated as a conquering people tothis country, where they were known as the Mongoni .Later on Gungunhana, with his large train offol lowers,also left Zululand and settled in a part of the same

region,his subjects being term ed the Ab agaza. As

m ight have been expected, the two warl ike tribes soonbegan to quarrel and a long

,fierce warwas the result.

The Mongoni ultimately had the wors t of i t, and weredriven across the Zambezi, where they settled on the

plateau- land on the west of Lake Nyassa . The

Abagaza were then acknowledged by al l native tribes

as the m aster of the beautiful territory along theSabi R iver, and Gungunhana

* i s s til l their param ountchief, his land being called G azaland. In 1820 the

Matabele also m igrated out of Zululand and settled in

After a short war recently with the Portuguese he was takencaptive by them , and it is reported that he wyl l be conveyed toLisbon—Trans.


We set out again at half-past two the next morning,

leaving Beeping behind with a horse to bring on the

four oxen which were too tired to be inspanned . Atten o’clock he arrived at ourwaggons wi thout any ofthe oxen, saying he could not find them . Mr. Rhodesimmediately sent him back, along with Mr. Jam es , to

go in search of the animals. They returned by theroad for a distance of twelve m iles, and at four o ’clockthey arrived at the waggons with the oxen. It wasclear that Beeping had been afraid to be alone in thedark

,and had followed the waggons without troubling

him self about the animals .We outspanned upon an elevation between two kraals

built on rocks,and we had not been there long when

we were again encircled by a crowd of Kafirs (men,

women and chi ldren), who wished to sel l us theirproducts—m eal , beans, peas, meal ies, rice, pum pkins,wild oranges, figs

,loquats, mapels, m aconas, honey,

eggs and fowls .Sib aberossa was the captain of these kraals, and he

in turn was a subject of the chief, Zimuto. Mr. Seloustold m e that in certain parts of Mashonaland hundredsof huts were to be found, which were built so high onrocks that theirinhabitants could not reach them exceptby means of long ladders . These ladders they drew Upevery night and let down every m orning. This was ofcourse done through fear of the Matabele. There wasa tim e when thousands of cattle and sheep were to bemet with in the country, but Lobengula

’s men had

carried away alm ost al l of them . The cattle and

sheep of the Mashonas are smal l in size, b ut they look

v erv well . The same may be said ofMashona fowls.

RATS CONSIDERED A DELICA 0 Y. 26 1

An enormous fig-tree, patronised chiefly by the beeand the starling

,stood close to where we had outspanned .

I shot some of the birds, not for sport, bu t to eat .

Of smaller birds than the starl ing, as, for instance,the sparrow

,the finch

,the robin or the red—beak, I

saw none,except the l ittle blue parrot. The previous

year, however, on our way to Tuli, we saw hundredsof these birds . I cannot understand how it is thatthey do not inhabit the part of the country we werenow travelling through . The hawk is very comm onhere

, and probably that accounts for the absence of

the smaller birds : the hawk very probably does withthe weaker bird what the Matabele does with theMashona.

As far as rats are concerned, Mashonaland cannotcomplain of having too few. These l ittle m ischievousanimals exist there in thousands . The natives, however, are fond ofthem they catch them and eat them .

It happens now and then that a Kafirwould sm ilinglyappear at a camp with a num ber ofrats tied to a stick,and offer them for sale ; and he is greatly surprisedat the taste and the manners of the white m an whenthe latter shudders at the sight and tells him imm ediately to be off with rats and all

The cl imate of Mashonaland is fairly m i ld . In

summ er the highest degree of temperature wouldb e 87 in the shade

, and in winter 41 in the

sun. At Kimberley we meet with far greaterextremes ; there the thermometer sometim es reads100 degrees in summ er in the shade, and I know i tto have descended to 25 degrees in winter. Fromthese facts we see that

,as far as temperature goes, the


cl imate of Mashonaland is preci sely the same as thatof the south-western corner of the Cape Colony , vi z .,between Capetown and the Paar]. The above information I received from Mr. Selous, who him self m adethe observations wi th sound apparatus which he hadbrought wi th him from Europe.

264: WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND .

our telegram s,and at three we returned to the

waggons.The formation of the rocks nearFort Victoria struck

my attention. They al l appeared more or less goldbearing.

Lord Randolph ’s cam p stood a little distance from

our own. His lordship cam e over to us towardsevening, Mr. Perkins, his friend, again accompanyinghim . We invited him to join our company thefollowing day to visit the Sim b abe ruins

,but Lord

Randolph stoutly declined t o do so, saying that he hadseen enough of old debris-heaps in his day and had no

desire to see m ore .“ But ,

”he added, “ if you can take me to a reef

bearing two ounces of gold to the ton, I wil l go and

see it .”

“ Well, answered Dr. Jameson,

“ then we shal ltake you to-m orrow to Dickens

’

Reef and to Long ’sReef, both ofwhich yield from six to nine ounces tothe ton.

”

What’s the use ! ” retorted the nobleman. Followthem a little deeper and they stop .

”

I do not understand you , interrupted the Prem ier.

Because you have seen one reef pitched out you

denounce all others !“ I take Perkins’ word

, was Lord Randolph ’s abruptreply .

Mr. Perkins, on being asked what his Opinion was

of Long’

s Reef, said that it was twelve feet broad and

looked very pretty, but that its proprietors were afraidto open it any farther because they knew it would soonrun to its end.

WITWATERSRAND AND MASHONALAND. 265

Do you hear that ? ” asked Lord Randolph with a

triumphant sm i le .It was no use arguing with them .

You must be e ither prejudiced against Mashonaland,

” I said to Perkins,

or you have som e privatereason for denouncing it.Lord Randolph then compared the gold fields of

Mashonaland with those of the Transvaal, and showedthe contrast between the outputs of the respectiveplaces .But are you aware, Lord Randolph, I said t o him ,

that Witwatersrand is six years old, whereas thisplace i s barely a year? I should like to m eet youfive years hence and then hearwhat you and your Mr.

Perkins, wi th all his ability as a gold expert,wi ll have

to say.

”

Here the argument on the gold fields dropped .

Again our distinguished v isitor was requested toaccompany us to the Simbabe ruins

,which lay about

twenty-five m i les by cart, and only half that distanceon horseback, from Victoria . But the stubborn gentlem an was not to be m oved, m uch less would he visit thegold reefs . His friend Perkins hardly spoke a word,and when he did he spoke in such a low voice that Icould not help contracting a feeling of distrust towardsthe m an.

It was to me som ething really strange that a man likeLord Randolph Church ill, who was receiving £200 foreach letter he inserted in the Daily Graphic, should notthink it worth his while going to see the rich newlydiscovered reefs

,nor even the intensely interesting

Simbabe ruins, which, to other travellers— I don’t


include fortune-seekers—was the chief attraction inthe country. Possibly the explanation of his conductlay in the fact that he had already sent to Englandpublic letters in which he had expressed the Opinionthat Mashonaland Was worth next to nothing

'

as far as

its gold-producing character was concerned .

The fol lowing m orning Lord Randolph asked Mr.

Rhodes to travel with him to Capetown : he had a

spider drawn by twelve mules and was travelling at a

much faster rate than we wi th the oxen.

Well,

”answered the Cape Prem ier, “ I must hear

what my fellow-traveller says . I should not l ike topart with him .

”

“ Oh, no,”was the reply ; I m ean tha t he should

also come with us there i s am ple room for the threeofus in the Spider.

Mr. Rhodes, I dare say, knew well that I would not

exchange the company ofmy friend Lange, and of the

genial Captain Tyson,for that of so soura man as Lord

Randolph Churchi ll,a man who had written in bitter

m alignity against my fel lowAfricanders, and who wasnow accompanied by a little conceited doctor and bv

Perkins. Besides, I know that he had not intended toinclude me when he invited Mr. Rhodes ; i t was onlythe clever dodge ofthe Prem ier—the observation thathe would not l ike to leave his friend behind—thatm ade the nobleman extend his invitation.

Mr. Rhodes now formal ly, in the presence of theEnglish ex-Chancellor, communicated to me the latter’sdesire. I felt very surprised, for although I had beensure that Lord Randolph would ask the Prem ier totravel with him I had never expected him to invite


CHAPTER XXII .

We s tart for Simbab e—A perilous ford—The great Simbab e temple-\Ve find our arrival is expected , and don

’

t al together l ikeour reception at first—Explanat ions m ake every thing clearWe climb the walls— An earl y cupof coffee.

THE following m orning Captain Tyson was to leaveby cart with the provisions, the karosses , etc . , forSimbab e, and Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Selous, Dr. Jam eson, Mr. Brabant and myself were to follow later inthe day. It was a beauti ful morning. While CaptainTyson was preparing to proceed to the ruins I took awalk up the hills on the other side of Victoria, andfrom there I had a m agnificent view over the hills

,

valleys, and woods around . Som e beautiful largeflowers were to be seen on some of the krantzes . Ipicked a few, and with my stick dug out the bulbsof two.

I was back at the camp at twenty m inutes pasteight . Captain Tyson was then on the point of starting for Simbab e. There was a seat vacant in the cartand the Captain pressed m e to take it. In a m omentI was ready, and at half-past eigh t we left with our

cart drawn by six choice m ules . The driver and reinholder sat in front, Captain Tyson and I at the

A DANGER OUS DRIVE. 269

nack. We drove across a field and were guided, not

by a road , but by som e wheel-tracks. We passedover hills

,through kloofs, and across spruits, the

scenery being sublime on every side . At length weapproached a deep river

,with banks steep and dan

gerons,but we did not notice it until we were within

a short distance of it . We were going down hil l ata rapid speed, with animal s not strong enough to stopthe heavy cart in tim e ; and the prospect ofm an

,mule

and cart being thrown into the river stared us in theface. Captain Tyson knew not what to do ; but in an

instant I formed a plan. I j umped down,seized from

the mules every leather strap that they could spare,

and with the assistance of my companion I quicklytied the straps to the sides of the cart and by theirm eans we pulled with all our m ight in the directionopposite to that in which the cart was going, whilstthe boys in the cart did their utm ost to hold the mulesin

, and in this way the speed of the vehicle wasslackened and we got it safely— though barely so, andnot without the expenditure of m uch exertionthrough the river.

At eleven o’clock we arrived and stepped at a river,

on the banks of which m any an old heap of soi lpointed out the spots where the ancients had beenwashing gold-quartz. We cooked coffee and roasteda piece of m eat— our m idday m eal— and a very nicemeal it was.

At one o’

clock we proceeded again, our course

winding through som e narrow passages between greenhills . Soon Simbabe H ill came in sight

, and afterpassing some gardens belonging to natives we arrived


at our destination and outspanned. We were now

confronted by the massive ruins of the great Simbabetemple, and the historical hi ll that rises close to i t.A strange feeling ran through m e as I stood thereand cast my eyes upon the ruins ; it was the samesensation I felt when I beheld the rem ains of ancientRom e

,and, a t a later date, those of Pompei i and

Herculaneum .

Shortly after we had unteam ed the mules we foundourselves encircled by a wide ring of some two or

three hundred Kafirs, old as wel l as young. I at firsttook no particular notice of them , much less did my

companion, but when I observed that theirnumber wasgradually increasing, that all of them were arm edsome with bows and arrows

,som e with axes and

w segais, som e with knob-kieries and others with guns—and that every eye was fixed on us with unusualgravity

,my suspicions were aroused

,and I said to

Captain Tyson“ I wonder what this m eans . Everyone is arm ed !

and look at that old man with the tiger-skin as

shield, with his plum ed hat and h is weapons ofwar1“ Do you not see,

”replied my friend,

“ that theyhave just returned from a hunt ? ”

“ Don’t you believe that !” I rejoined ;

“ this i s notthe way that Kafirs dress when they go out hunting ;b esides

,they would not go out in so large a body .

”

I then told the driver, who could speak Kafir, to tel lthe Kafirs to fetch som e m eal ies and corn for our

horses and we would give them pretty things inreturn. He did so, but not the sl ightes t heed wasgiven to his reques t . This was the strangest ofall.

2 7 2 WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND .

guard, because the“

great m aster of the land hadarrived

, and he purposed killing al l the male Kafirsand taking their wives and children into captivity.They had been expecting him many days .Tel l the captain,

”we orde red the boy,

“ that if hefears that we have com e to put him to death he can

take our guns and keep them ti ll we leave this place.

We have only com e to see the tem ple that formerwhite men had built and occupied . And tel l himthat the great master wi ll, if possible, protect everyMashona and wil l never carry away a single womanor child.

”

This announcement was received wi th great joy.

The Kafirs clapped their hands and bowed down to us,

and the plumed captain then withdrewwith his largeretinue. The few that remained behind we a sked tofetch us wood and water. Within an hour afterwardsa gang of natives of both sexes appeared at our cartwith mealies, rice, corn, eggs, etc. ,

and four fowls weresent us as a token of goodwi l l from the Kafir captain.

Captain Tyson again m ade a profitable exchange .At four. o’c lock the Prem ier arrived with Mr. Selous

,

Dr. Jameson and Mr. Brabant . After taking coffeewe went in one company to see the remains of old

Simbab e. We did not at first sight th ink the ruinsnearly so gigantic as on v iewing them more closely wefound them . Dr. Jameson and I climbed up the

m assive but elegantly—built walls, which at som e partsare between twenty-five and thirty feet high

, and we

walked on them alm ost right round the ruins . \Ve werem uch interested in the Phal lus or Phalli

,the Phoeni

c ian god, the t op part of which had fallen in. Inside

A NIGHT IN THE ANCIENT CITY. 27 3

the temple there grew a large wild tree, the branchesofwhich bowed about thirty feet over the walls.At sundown we returned to our cart.The country round about the ruins exhibits m ost

picturesque scenery . Look where you wi ll, all i s greenand beautiful .There being no waggon in which we could sleep

we spread our beds on the ground and,though

numbers of h ideous centipedes were creeping there, andthough our beds were almost as hard as stone, we triedto sleep. Mr. Rhodes lay in the cart. It was a quiet,cool night ; nothing b ut the night-bird broke itssilence. As I lay there with everything appearingso gloom y and solemn around m e, it was strangeto m e to think that the place, which was now

as desolate and quiet as a churchyard, was once theabode of thousands ofwh ite men,

and a place at which ,in all probability, great festivi ties had frequentlytaken place in honour of the Phal lus . At last Islumbered, but I had hardly been asleep two hourswhen the smell of smoke awaked me, and I wasstartled to find a fire kindled next to m e and CaptainTyson busy gathering wood.

“ My dearm an,” I said, “

are you possessed by thedevil

, or is the Spirit ofSimbab e haunting you ? It isnot two o’clock yet and you are making a fire ! Howcan I sleep like this ? ”

“ My good friend,” he replied, “ I want to let you

enjoy a del icious cup ofcoffee early this morning .

”

“ Very kind of you,” I answered, but we don’t want

it in the night. Leave your fire and com e to bed . Atfour o’clock I ’ll wake you .

”


But my words were waste of breath . Nothingremained for me but to take up my karosses andspread my bed upon another spot farther from the fire.

However,my rest was entirely broken, and it was in

vain that I tried to sleep again. At five we wereall up, and then drank the coffee that CaptainTyson had prepared for us three hours before.


some resemblance to the Colosseum at Rome.From the discoveries that Mr. and Mrs. Bent hadm ade in that temple there can b e left no doubtthat the building had been erected by a whitenation. Mr. Bent dug out of the ruins fine

porcelain,bronze chains and rings

,bronze parrots

peculiar old coins,broken pots

,vases, beads, knives,

axes,assegais , slabs of m arble

,pieces of cem ent and

bronze phal luses . I saw the Spots at which “ the whitem an and the white woman had been digging. A lot ofold pieces of wood -remains, I presume, of the roof ofthe tem ple—were to be seen lying there. I once m oreclimbed up the big wal l and from its top had anotherview of the temple. I t was strange form e to imaginethat what was now the hom e of the lizard and the

weasel was once the place ofglory of Phoenicians. On

the right of us stood Simbab e Hill,which rose about

500 feet above the level of the neighbouring land , andwas enclosed by a. heavy stone wal l . It was inhabited by

the Kafirs with whom we had the m emorable m eetingthe day before .In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Simbab e

was frequently visited by Portuguese, who, i t isstated , carried away m any valuable articles from the

temple,but the people were afterwards driven from

there by Kafir tribes . Since that time nothing washeard of Simbab e unti l in 187 1 Manch

,the famous

travel ler, discovered it anew. The story goes thatSimb abe was the capital ofManikaland, the countrylying between Um tal i and the present Fort Victoria,and m easuring about 400 m iles long and 160 broad.

Judging by the old diggings, almos t all that country

OONJEOTURES REGARDING SIMBABE. 27 7

must once upon a tim e have been gold-producing, andi f the land was rich in gold in form er ages— as historysays it was— it must be rich in gold still, though theveins of gold m ay no longer be met with on, or evennear, the surface. But there are gold experts who say

with Lord Randolph Churchill (though on grounds nolonger tenable) that all the gold the land had con

tained had been carried away by the ancient m iners ,and that this accounts for the reason why Simbab e,

once a town of thousands of inhabitants, had beenabandoned.

Simbab e was cal led Simboae in earl ier days, andit is known by some to-day as

“ Simb ambye.

” It isthe Opinion ofManch that Sofala Bay was the landingplace of the people who in olden days dug for gold inthe neighbourhood of Simb ab e

,and that the magni

ficent temple, judging from the style in which i t hadbeen built and the way in which the town had beenlaid out , had been erected ei ther by the order of

King Solomon,or of the Queen of Sheba, or else

by the Persians ; and he does not think it at all

impossible that the Ophir, of which we read in theBible

,is Simb ab e. This was the opinion also of the

Portuguese of the sixteenth century. History tells usthat 600 years before the birth of Christ a Phoenicianfleet

,equ ipped by Necho in the Red Sea, sai led round

the coast of South Africa, and i t also informs us

that the Arabians in the fourteenth century largelytraded with the natives of Sofala, exchanging Asiaticproducts forManikaland gold.

The Moors,too, who dwelt upon Quilloa, an island in

their occupation close to Sofala, at one time extensively


bartered with the Sofala inhabitants . In the fifteenthcentury the Portuguese defeated the Moors, took

Quilloa in possession, and opened trade with the Sofalans, which consisted chiefly in the exchange of

European articles for gold and ivory. Both the Arabians and the Moors used to have important commercialtowns on the East Coast . We read that the Moors ona very large scale tra ded with Monomotapa, the greatand wealthy negro king of the land of gold that theKing of the Moors paid Monomotapa m ore than one

visit,and that Monomotapa had a m agnificent Court,

at which sixty princes received their education in

lordly style . We read also of the fine stables that thatm onarch had for his own use ; ofh is high officials, m en

imported from Arabia and India ; of his beautifulgrain fields ; of hi s sugar plantations ; of his fields ofrice and cotton ; of his large flocks of sheep, goatsand pigs ; and of the multitude of slaves

,both male

and female, in his service . In those days copperwas considered by the Sofalans as a more v aluablemetal than gold, being much scarcer.

In 1569 Francisco Barreto was appointed by thePortuguese the Captain-General and Governor of theEast Coast of Africa, with the additional title of

Governor of the Gold Mines ofMonomotapa.

” Weread how this Francisco Barreto was sent from Lisbonwith a force of 1000 m en, all well equipped, to conquerMonomotapa, the King of the Gold and SilverMines,

”

and how a body of Moors from Algiers, provided withhorses

,mules and camels

,followed to assist him . Bar

reto defeated the great negro m onarch,not, however,

before he (Barreto)had suffered several reverses. All

280 WITH EHOD'

Es IN MASHONALAND .

are the same from which King Solomon got his gold

(through the Phoenicians), and he is strengthened inthis conviction when he has seen the very places atwhich the sm el ting had taken place.

Since,then, the gold fields have been a source of

wealth to somany nations— first, as far as we can traceh istory

,to the Phoenicians, then to the Persians, then

to the Moors, then to the people ofMonomotapa, thento the Portuguese, and then, to some extent, to theMashonas - we cannot but expect that thev wil l alsofill the coffers of the Chartered Com pany

,and we

heartily hope they will, because the prosperity of

Mashonaland m eans to a great extent the prosperityof the Cape Colony, not only because i t i s the com ingmarket for our wines and other produce

,b ut because

there is every prospect of its soon becoming amalgamated with , ifnot annexed to, the Cape Colony . We

trust that the fate ofVasco Vernandes and of Hom en

i s not also awaiting Rhodes and Jam eson, and thatMashonaland wi ll ere long have its fame ofold restored.

We left the temple and visited the other ruins,

but they were so covered wi th shrubs and a sortof wi ld vine that we could hardly see anythingof them . Next we decided to ascend Simbabe

Hill . Passing the old walls surrounding the hill—wh ich were about six feet wide— and slowly ascending the hill, we came to the remains of severalancient villas surrounded by high walls . To each of

these villas there was a wide porch with pillars on bothsides . These pillars were constructed of long graniteblocks

,and they stood as firm as i f they had only

recently been put up. All over the h il l the remains

THE SIMDADE R UINS. 28 1

of terraces were to be seen, which , I have very littledoubt

,were the residences ofthe aristocracy.

Some walls I found to be thirteen feet wide and

built of smal l smooth granite stones of the size of

bricks . No doubt those enorm ous walls about Simbabe—there are hundreds of them—r are the works of slaves .Many an ancient fort is stil l to b e seen there, and thereare several ru ins which appear to he remains of templesand palaces . I climbed up a large rock, and from thereI had a Splendid view ofall the ruins

‘

on the m ountainside . All was solemnly sti ll around me, the onlynoisethat I could hear— and that was very faint— beingthe dismal m usic com ing from some pecul iar Kafirinstrum ents at the foot of the h i ll, and I cannot expressthe strange feel ing wi th which I was seized as I sat onthat rock and gazed on the sight in front ofme.

‘

It is not improbable that Simbab e Hil l had once beenworshipped, and that hymns of praise had there beensung to the sun, moon and stars, as was comm on in thedays of the Gal ipians, the Phoenicians, the Assyriansand other nations . It is, however, not my intention toenter into the history of these peoples and detailtheir connection with Simbab e

,nor to show how

Manch , the well-known natural philosopher, who madethe ruins a special study, agrees with Barras, with thePortuguese of the sixteenth century

,and with others,

that the ruins are the rem ains of large bui ldingsraised by white men, andnot by natives ; nor to recounthowMarco Polo, the Venetian traveller, in 1292 met a

brown nation on Africa’s east coast,

“ having swordsand lances and shields, and riding camels and ele

phants nor to relate how,600 years B.C.

,a Phoenician


fleet, fitted out by Necho, doubled the most southernpoint ofAfrica norto tel l what influence the Saracensexercised on the East Coast after the time of Christ.Suffice it form e to say that I am thoroughly convincedthat the ruins in and ' round about Simbabe are a proofto dem onstration of the existence in earlier days ofthousands

, yea tens of thousands, ofwhite men there .

This was also the opinion of Livingstone. I say

again it is my sincere wish—and I am sure thatmy fellow-colonists are sharing the wish with me—thatMr. Rhodes—who i s now reopening those rich m inesof Mashonaland

,and by whose means the white man

(am ongst others the Boer, the best of pioneers) is fastcom ing into possession of the country -may meet withall success and prosperity. Our Prem ier may be sureofgaining the hearty support of the vast majority ofthe farmers in the Cape Colony, the Free State, theTransvaal and Natal in his undertakings in Mashonaland . I trust that the l ittle m istrus t and jealousy thatsome still cherish towards him wi ll soon die away, fordiscord and strife amongst the wh ite population in a

country like ours can only tend to injure all parties .Let us rem ember that we have not only to take accountof foreign countries, but we have to keep a watchfuleye on the internal interests of our own land ; wel ive in a land in which there are m illions of natives

, a

fact that gives rise to an obviously serious question. If,

therefore, the white races in the different parts ofSouthAfrica do not l ive in harm ony with each other thefuture i s certain to yield us bitter fruits .The discoveries of m inerals that are daily being

made in Mashonaland are already to a great extent


CHAPTER XXIV.

We return to our travels -The thriving condition of the Simbab e

Kafirs—Their pretty children—The litt le ones suspicious ofthe meat-tins— Onc of our animals taken ill—A visit toDickens’ Gold Reef—Stamping the quartz—Dr. Jamesondisplays his horsemanship and comes a cropper.

LET me, however, return to our travel . As we slowlydescended the m ountain we passed several huts builtamong the ruins

, and i f there was anything thatstruck us about their inhabitants it was their physicalcondition. The little boys and girls we saw there wereas fat as human beings could be. How the youngwomen looked I have not seen enough of them to tel l.We now and then noticed an inquisitive dam selpeeping out of the hut door, but as soon as we ap

proached the b ut she disappeared,and

,awe- stricken

,

she would so bol t the door from inside that not a

m ouse could pass t hrough it . The poor creatures werefilled with fear and susp icion— and what wonder ! Pas texperiences at the hands of the Matabele have taughtthem the wisdom ofexercising extrem e precaution.

The l ittle children of the Sim babe Kafirs are reallypretty. I felt incl ined to catch a couple, take themto Capetown, and bring them up. Now and then

,to

Show h is good-will , a Kafirwould come to us with a

TIMID KAFIR OHILDREN. 285

few eggs and m ake us a present of them . TheMashona

cows that we pas sed on the hill-side took after their

m asters as far as their condition was concerned—fine,strong and fat every one oft hem l ooked .

Having spent two hours and a half upon the hill we

returned to our camp, where Captain Tyson had mean

while prepared a s a splendid dinner. I now forgavethe philanthropic Captain the sin he had comm ittedduring the night in depriving me of my re s t, and weheartily drank each other

’

s health .

The remains of our d inner we gave to the l ittl eKafir children who had been flocking around us, b uti t was strange to see how cautious they were withregard to what they ate, being afraid, I suppose,there m ight be poison in the food. The lem onade and

the m eat-t ins they would at first not touch at all, for

these real ly looked too suspicious . I took a spoonfulout of a tin and ate it in their presence to Show themthat it was free from anything mal ignant. One or t wo

of the bolder youngsters then grabbed a tin each, andsoon all were greedily eating and drinking everythingthat they could get .At half-past one Captain Tyson and I left Simb abe

wi th the cart. The rest of the party having theirhorses with them could cross to Victoria by a shortcut , and so they decided to leave Simbabe at a laterhoun

When we had gone about three m i les from Simbabe

one of our fore-mules began to cough, and trot badly,

but we did not trouble ourselves much about it . Thefartherwe drove, however, the m ore the poor creaturecoughed and the weaker i t seem ed to become, t il l at


last foam began to run from its nose. Our Zulurein-holder then assured us that the animal had the“ horse sickness,

”and he advised us to have the mule

imm ediately rem oved . We stopped the cart and

unharnessed the animal, which Mr. Brabant, who cam eon horseback behind us

,kindly drove on

,choosing

the shorter road to Victoria. Our cart was now beingdrawn by only fourmules . The odd one, the one thathad been harnessed to the invalid, we tied to the mulesat the back .

We stopped at the sam e river at which we hadoutspanned the day before, took a refreshing bath in it

and then prepared coffee, which, though we had totake it without sugar—and the Africander i s veryfond of sugar— tasted as Scotch whisky would to a

thirsty Scotchman.

We soon set off again. and towards evening we

arrived at the cam p. Mr. Brabant shortly afterwardsturned up with the diseased animal

,but the valuable

creature died with in an hour after its arri val .The nex t m orning at a quarter to six Mr. Rhodes,

Dr. Jameson, Mr. Selous,Mr. Lange and I left on

horseback for Dickens’ Gold Reef, nine m i les from

Fort Victoria . We rode through pretty veld, passedsom e beautiful running stream s, and at a quarter toeight we arrived at the reef. The reef was onlyeighteen inches wide when first struck ; now,

however,

at a depth of thirty feet its width was four feet.Mr. Runsman, the overseer there, asked us to takesome pieces of the quartz and he would stamp and

wash them for us at the nearest Spruit. We each thentook som e quartz from different parts of the reef and, '


intended to leave the next m orning as early as possible .During our stay at Victoria the keen eye of our

Prem ier had observed much . He ordered that barnsshould withou t delay be erected there to store themeal ies

,corn and flour

,and that they should be

covered overwith grass in order that the damp m ightbe kept out.At Victoria

,as at Salisbury, we met none b ut

comm anders,captains

,corporals

,sergeants

,etc . These

gentlemen bear so m any titles to their names that itis no wonder they forgot to bring the m ealies underroofi

( 289 )

CHAPTER XXV.

A new team—Mr. Lange, Captain Tyson an ! [ arc team s tersA mad rush down hill—A bathe in the Crocodiles’ pool

Providential Pass, in the haunt s of the gold~seekers —Long’s

Reef—Mr. Long can give reasons for his actions—LordRandolph much in error.

A LARGE number of oxen was brought together, andfrom i t January

,Fortuin and Bosbok had each t o

choose his team of twelve .‘O f course the very best

were selected.

Leaving Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Selous , Dr. Jameson and

Mr. Barrow to follow us on horseback later in the day,and substituting Bosbok

,a g ood Kafir, for that curious

Ho ttentot,Petrus

,as driver

,Mr. Lange, Captain

Tyson and I set out with the waggons at half-pastseven in the m orning (No vember 3rd). Mr. Langesat on the front waggon, Captain Tyson on the

second, and I on the third. We had t aken theserespective places in order to watch how the new oxenpulled

,and to lend a helping hand to t he drivers if

anything should go wrong . At the outset all faredwel l ; our road was uphill and al l the oxen workedsteadily . Those at the rear pulled a little harder thanthose in front, but that did not matter— a ll pulled

,and

with that we were satisfied . But , gracious m e, what aU


Spectacle there was whenwe'

had reached the top of thehill and had to go down the other side ! Som e of thehind oxen furiously ran between those in front as

though determ ined to take the lead . Mr. Langehad to do his utm ost to -keep ahead in order toprevent the waggon behind from colliding with his .Captain Tyson’s task was harder still. On the one handhe had to try to keep his waggon from running intoMr. Lange

’s,and, on the other, he needed to drive

as hard as he could to keep his waggon clear of m ine.

This was too hot forhim seized with fright,he jumped

down from hi s waggon and ran as hard as he couldto that of Mr. Lange, where he thought he was m oresecure . On my waggon no whip was needed, but ho !ho ! ho we had to shout until our throats were as dry

as corks . Of stopping or arranging the oxen in properorderwe cOuld, ofcourse, not think . Madly they rusheddown the hill , causing the waggons to run now on two

wheels, now on four,whilst our poor bodies were

being shaken about m ost merc ilessly and yet , strangeto say, we reached the end of the mpe without theslightest accident having happened. Thank Providence, we could breathe again ! We stopped the

waggons, got down, and congratulated each other on

our safety . Captain Tyson, who was still tremblingwith excitem ent, now gave us a very humorous exposition of what he thought and felt and did during

the mad descent, and he openly confessed that he hadbeen seized with fear when his oxen could not be

controlled, and that he had therefore thought it bestto desert his waggon.

We changed the oxen, putting several that had

292 WITH 'RHODES IN MASHONALAND.

And you became aware of nothing ?Of nothing unusual ,

”we replied .

My'

dear friends,” said he, must I tell you why

that pool is fenced in ? It i s to prevent cattle fromdrinking water there and being caught by crocodiles . In fact, th is is one of the m ost dangerouscrocodile-places in all Mashonaland .

”

Others told us the sam e afterwards. Wel l, I am

glad we had not been warned before we went into thewater, because,

“ where ignorance is bl iss,’

tis fol ly tob e wise .”

We were now at the entrance to Providential Pass ,a narrow way leading through some m ountains. Itis the pass through which the Pioneers were led byMr. Selous into Mashonaland . It was bel ieved at one

time that that was the only way from the south bywhich a waggon could get into Mashonaland, and thatit was by the guidance of Providence that the passagehad been d iscovered— hence the name.

The range of b ills on the right of us was the

Injaguzwe. All about this place diggers were busilyengaged in opening reefs, and theirwaggons and tentsgave the place a l ively appearance. Mr. Rhodes

,

Mr. Selous, Dr. Jam eson,Mr. Barrow and I had our

horses saddled and we rode to Long’s Reef. Pastkopjes

,over h il ls, and through stream s we rode

, and

within an hour and a half we reached our destination.

We dism ounted, tied our horses to trees,and went

t o inspect the reef of which we had heard so much .

And we were not disappointed at whatwe saw. The reefprojected between six and eight feet above the surfaceof the ground and was about twelve feet wide

,showing

LONG’S GOLD REEF. 293

Visible gold on every side . Upon the top of one of

the rocks not far from there twelve round holeswere to b e seen

,which no doubt had been made by

natives,who stamped and ground the quartz. Indeed

al l t he hil l seemed to be auriferous . We took some

pieces of the quartz and stam ped and washed them

at a stream close by,and i t was real ly wonderful

to see how m uch gold they contained . The reef had

been Opened only three feet ! This arrested the

attention of the Prem ier.

Why do you not sink your shaft deeper,say thirty

or forty fee t ? ” he inquired of Mr. Long, purposelyin our presence, for, as the reader wil l remember,Mr. Perkins

,the gold expert, had declared that

Mr. Long was afraid to sink his shaft deeper becausehe (Mr. Long) knew that he would find the reef at

i ts end.

“ Well , Mr. Rhodes, answered Mr. Long ,'

you ask

m e the sam e question Mr. Perkins asked m e,and

I can only give you the’

same answer I gave him .

How can you expect me to continue shaft-sinking and

so allow the rain to wet everything,and leave water

standing where we are working, which would certainlyproduce fever am ongst us ? No

,sir ; the gold-bearing

quartz is here, and even though this reef should run

out at a depth of fi ve feet, I can m ake my fortune outof i t . However

,when I have finished the dwelling

house, which , as you see, I am new bui lding andb )

have erected some barns, I Shall go on sinking theshaft.”

“ Bravo ! Mr. Long, I exclaimed ; you have nu

swered well


What do you think asked Mr. Rhodes,will be

the depth of this reef“ Judging by what the top of it was

,replied Mr.

Long,

“and by what I find i t at this depth

,I would

say i t runs very deep .

That is also as it appears to me, Mr. Long,"

rejoined the Managing Director of the CharteredCompany

,who seem ed very pleased both with the reef

and Mr. Long.

“ My good m an,

”he continued

,

“ whenyour dwelling-house and your barns are ready, do notdelay sinking the shaft as deep as you can, and, if th isreef does not run out , Mashonaland is made ! For a

richer reef than this I have neither seen nor heard of.”

While we were speaking to Mr. Long some otherm iners cam e to us and invited us to com e and see

the reefs that they were working. They brough tsom e quartz with them ,

which also appeared very rich .

We had before been told of their reefs,but had no

tim e now t o visit them . I put a few pieces of quartz inmy saddle-b ag to give one or two of them to Mr.

Lange in fulfi lm ent ofmy promise to h im ,and to take

the rest to Capetown for analysis .Towards evening we set out to our camp

,and rode

at a very hard pace, in order to avai l ourselves, for thedirection of our course

,as m uch as possible of the

daylight stil l left us. However, it was pitch darkwhen, at eight o

’

clock,we reached ourwaggons.

NVhen I think that Lord Randolph Church il lpassed wi thin three m iles of Long’s gold m ineapparently the richest m ine hitherto di scovered inMashonaland— and would not so m uch as go and lookat it , I cannot help shaking my head in surpri se.


CHAPTER XXVI.

Again on the march—An accident to my portmanteau—I am

sad in consequence—A bard al ternative before Roeping and

January—Off t o Chibe to learn the truth abou t the Adendorff concession—An uphil l climb—Chibe does not confirmthe concession—We learn more details about Lobengula—Mynew boy.

AT two o ’clock the following morning we againadvanced with the waggons . I sat upon the waggonthat

‘

January drove . Our road was not a very pleasantone, being overgrown in several parts by obstructingshrubs

,and dangerously bordered by large trees .

I had my portmanteau tied to one of the sides of thewaggon

,and there, I thought, i t would be perfectly

safe . About an hour after our start, as I was lyinghalf-asleep in the waggon, I heard something tear, bu t,th inking that it was the waggon-canvas

,and forgetting

altogether about my portmanteau, I was not muchconcerned about it. At half-past five we arrived at

the Tukwi River,and outspanned on the other side

of i t. On going to see where the canvas had got torn,I found

,to my sorrow,

that not the canvas but myportmanteau was the thing rent . It had been torn bya tree alm ost righ t in two

,and many of the articles

I had stowed in i t were m issing am ongst them theC ,

A VISIT TO CHIRE’S TOWN. 29 7

palm -nut that I would not have sold for ten pounds,and som e pipes

,beads

, and j erseys . I felt vexed withJanuary

,but m ore so wi th Roeping, for he had been

following the waggons,and should have seen and picked

up the lost articles . I felt so sad and out of humourabout it that I abandoned my intention of going withthe rest of the party to Chibe’s kraal, and resolved toset out instead in search ofmy palm -nut . But the restof the party would not hear ofmy turning back and notaccompanying them . So it was at last decided thatRoeping and January shou ld return on the waggons

’

track and find the m issing things,failing to do which

we promised to give them each twenty-four lashes we

had to add this threat or else b e pretty sure that thosesly fellows would go halfway and then turn back t o

tell us—as Roeping did the day he had to seek the

oxen We cannot find them .

”

At seven o ’clock we had our horses saddled,and

Mr. Rhodes, Dr. Jam eson, Mr. Selous, Mr. Brabantand I rode to Ch ib e’s town to hear from the m outhof the chief him self how much of what had beentold us about him was true . He was the Chiefwi th whom the Adendorff concession was said to havebeen drawn up

,and who was represented by the Aden

dorff-Vorster clique as the true owner of Mashonaland-at least, of a part of i t . Mr. Adendorff, it wi ll b e

remembered, received the support of a considerablenumber of irresponsible Transvaal burghers, am ongthem the Malans

,one of whom ,

I may mention, wasthe son-in-law of General Jcubert . Several c itizens ofthe Orange

'

Free S tate and Cape Colony favoured themovem ent . Three parties were despatched to the Free


State, there to promote the cause ofMr. Adendorff bypleading the rights which had been obtained fromthe great param ount chief, Chibe ! Circulars wereSpread in the Transvaal urging the burghers to resistRhodes taking possession of Banyailand. Thi s led tocomm issions being despatched from the Cape to theTransvaal, to negotiate with the m is informed—the misled

, I should say—parties ; and proclamations were

issued in the Cape Colony,as well as in t he Transvaal ,

that none should take part in the hostile trekrrrovement . This naturall y set some newspapers inagitation and led to numerous m eetings being held tod iscuss the question. When any one of any publicsignificance in the republics expressed his decision infavour ofMr. Rhodes

,he was stigmatised as bribed by

the latter. Well , we were now on our way to Chibe,the m an who was said to have granted Messrs. Adendorff and Vorster their Banyailand Concession.

It was a beautiful morning . On our left chainsof hills were facing us

,and on our right the pretty

Tukwi flowed . The country there is rich in woods andabounds in all kinds of wild fruits

,amongst which are

the m edlar,the fig

, the loquat, the date, the“ German

polony, the orange and the nacuna. We also passedseveral kraals and grain-fields.

At ten o’clock we reached the foot of the mountainupon which the town of Chibe stands . There we

stopped and took rest under three large wi ld fig-trees,then in full foliage

,allowing our horses t o graze in the

meantim e . After breakfast,Mr. Rhodes asked Mr.

Brabant to go and inquire from Chibe whether we

could meet him,and

,if so, when. Mr. Brabant, who


could walk it up and down every day wi th babes tiedon their backs

,and heavy calabashes fi lled wi th water

on their heads,I could not understand . But what else

are the poor creatures to do ? They are compelledto dwell on the highest ridges of the mountains in orderto be as secure as possible against the enemy. Indeed ,i t was no pleasant task we had not only was the roadsteep

,but it was slippery

,and therefore dangerous—if

one slipped and fell, the chances were that he wouldalso roll some distance down the slope. Mr. Brabant ,who acted as our guide

,led us past several krantzes

and huts, whilst we were being treated with instrum ental Kafir music from the little m ountain- tops .Having completed al l the turnings leading up to theKafir town, we reached our des tination— Chibe’s residence. we found the chief s itting on a smal l chairin front of his hut

,with about eight aged indunas

around him . Mr. Brabant was to b e our interpreter,though Mr. Selous could al so speak Kafir. As weapproached the hut

,the ch ief and the counsellors

courteously bowed to us,and we returned the salutat ion.

We could at once recognise which one was the chief.Mr. Brabant opened the conversation.

NVhat i s your nam e ?” he asked the Bant a i

ruler.

Chibe is my nam e, was the reply.

Are you the only captain in this country known bythe name of Chibe

Yes,

”the chief answered

,

“ but my eldes t brotheral so used to be called Chibe . [This elder brotherwas the predecessor of the present ruler.]Upon the request ofMr. Rhodes

,Mr. Brabant aske '

l

THE B OGUS OONOESSION. 301

Chibe how he happened to be placed at the head ofhis race.

“ Thirteen years ago, he replied, “ my brother wastaken prisoner by Lobengula, carried to Lobengula

’stown

, and flayed al ive. Since that time I have ruledover this tribe .”

“ If your eldest brother’s name was Chibe,how i s it

that you have the same nam e

Chibe is not a m an’s name, was the response

both of us had other names Chibe m eans headman

or chief—“ Chibe is only a title .Mr. Brabant then asked the chief whether he knew

anyone with the name of Sheb assa. This questionwas put becauseMr. Adendorff, when he began to waveras to Chibe

,asserted that he had received his conces

sion from Sheb assa, a greater man even than Chibe !Yes

,

”

answered the chief, I know Shebassa well ;he is a grandson of m ine and a petty chief

,but he i s

al so one of my subjects .”

“ And has Sheb assa the right to m ake a concessionof land to anybody without your perm ission ? ”

No,certainly not ! was the answer.

“ He hasno right to give away the smal lest bit of groundwithout my consent .

”

But has not Sheb assa perhaps made a concession tosomebody without yourknowing of i t ?

”

“ No , I do not think so,because he knows that he

is not allowed to do it, and that he would lose his lifei f he did But even if he should have m ade such a con

cession i t would have no value, for i t i s in my landthat he l ives, and he has no right to dispose of myproperty .

”


But did you not grant a conces s ion to white peopleto seek for gold in your landNo, to none ! My land is hardly large enough for

myself and my people why should I be so fool ish as toal low white men to occupy it ? ”

“ But you have signed a document— and your counsellors have signed it as witnesses—conceding yourland to Mr. Adendorff

“ No ! no !”answered Chibe excitedly ;

“ who told

you that ?”

Mr. Adendorff says so,

answered our interpreter,

and he has such a docum ent in his pocket.”

That i s a lie ! ” repl ied the ch iefwith em phasis. Ihave given no concession of land to anybody .

”

“ Well , Mr. Adendorfl'

has a document which he

pretends to have received from you, and in which it is

written that you have granted him a right over yourentire land .

How could I m ake such a concession ? ” rej oinedthe chief. I am a ruler over a part of th i s land

,b ut

a ll the land does not belong to me . Here are many

chiefs— some greater than myself—and what righ thave I to give away of their land ? You have beendecei ved, that is all .Mr. Selous then cam e forward and addressed the

counsellors“ Perhaps your captain has forgotten— but do you

not recollect anything about such a concession ?

No,nothing, was the unanimous reply ; such a

concession must be false.

“ What are the boundarie s of your land ? ” askedMr. Selous .


Tel l us to whom the regions belong over wh ichthe following chiefs rule Chel lemanz i

, Guto, Um tigeni,Matchi

,Sitout si, Simuto, Iudina, Berrez ema, Lomo

gendi, Kwetel la, e tc .

”

“ All these,

”answered Chibe,

“ belong to KingLobengula

,and al l those ch iefs must pay an annual

tax to him .

”

I asked one of the indunas to Show me from wherewe were standing , i f he could

,in which directions and

how far the land of Chibe stretched . This he gladlydid

In what time of the year,I asked him , have you

to pay your tribute to Lobengula“ Now

,

”replied the induna, and, pointing with his

finger to a Kafir camp at the foot of the m ountain, hesaid, Do you see that ? Well, they are tax-gatherersfrom Lobengula. They are Matabele men

,and they

have conre to get cattle and grain from us .”

How much must you give ? ” I inquired.

As much as they demand and can carry away .

There i s no fixed tariff. Sometimes they are satisfiedwith a little, but at other tim es they want a largequantity of everything .

”

How m any of them are there in that camp ?About sixty.

”

And since when have they been here ? ”

“ Since noon yesterday.

Mr. Selous then resumed questioning Chibe.

“ Why,

” he asked,“ do the Matabele tax-gatherers

all enter the land at one and the sanre time

Ah , that they do in order that, i f any dispute ariseon the am ount of contribution demanded

, or i f any

IIOW LO BEN COLLECTED TAXES . 305

ch ief offer resistance,all the tax-gatherers that have

been sent to the various ch iefs may b e able quick lyto assemble in order to attack and slay the rebel , andto take away by force as many of the wom en

,children

,

cattle, sheep, and as m uch of the grain,as they are

able to convey to the king.

”

“ Then you m ean to say that if you refuse tocomply with the demands of those sixty, all the

m en who have been sent out to t he various chiefs toexact taxes will

,immediately on receiv ing word of

the matter, gather t ogether, and with their combinedforce attack you ? ”

Yes,exac tly so

,—every party of tax—collectors have

their m essengers,who in time of danger run as

swiftly as they can from the kraal of one chief tothat of another, to summon the m en together, and

in this way , within the space of a few days an armyof some hundreds i s raised, by which th e rebelliousch ief is attacked and plundered and bu tchered .

”

“ Thus,

remarked Mr. Selous, you must hav e as

m uch respect for the sixty as for the six hundredChibe nodded .

“ And though ,” said he

,

“ I shouldb e strong enough to repulse and rent the six hundred,I would b e very stupid i f I did i t, because Lobengulawould then lead two thousand or three thousand m en

against m e and would put m e to death . Such hashappened before to other chiefs .”

But ifone of the ch iefs who is subject to Lobengulahas a fal l-out with the tax-col lectors, do none of the

others lend their aid ? ”

“ No ! oh,no ! None dare ! None would risk it .

If they do,they can only expect to be put to death


and to have their wives and children captured and

made slaves .”

We were further told that the tax-collectors werethe choice soldiers of the Matabele king. It wasstrange that we should have com e there at the verytime when the Matabele were going abou t demandingcontributions.From one of the indunas I received as a present a

walking-stick, with which I was m uch taken up, but

which I lost soon afterwards. All the time we wereengaged in the interesting interview with Chibe,Kafir women were to be seen inquisitively peepingthrough every hut -door near at the curious whitem en I stepped towards Chibe’s hut to see in how fari t di ffered from others, but suddenly the door was

slammed before my eyes by one or two fem ales inside,and barred. Oh

,these poor beings are terribly afraid

of the white man ! At a little distance from us someKafir m aids were playing the flute and the ramk ee ;

the music sounded rather pretty.

We were highly satisfied with our v isit. We

thanked Chibe for the important information he had so

kindly given us, bade h im farewell, and went to saddleour horses. It was now four o ’clock.

I may mention that, though Ch ibe is a man of at

A year later, i .e.,

1892, Chibe, foolish ly relying on the expec tat ion that Lobengula would not dare to at tack h im owing to the

presence of so m any whites in the country who were known by thenatives to entertain great aversion to cruelty and oppression,refused to pay the taxes demanded by Lobengula, with the resul tthat a Matabele force was sent against him , his town plundered, alarge portion of his people massacred, and he himself captured andslain.

—Transla tor.


go wi th you,take him ! He seem s a good and funny

little fellow.

”

The boy alm ost leaped out ofhis skin from joy whenwe told him he could go with us.We then bade Ch ibe’s town “ Good-bye

,and, with

Mr. Brabant again as leader, we once m ore walked

down the steep,winding

,slippery road . Here and

there we passed a smal l group of Kafirs , Very slowlywe descended the hill , and very cautiously

,in order

to escape falling. We took the shortest cuts to our

waggons. The two Kafirs followed us closelv , and so

did my boy, who ran like a lit tle buck over the way,and every now and then brought m e some wild fruit ,among them a few wi ld oranges

,which I took with

m e to Capetown.

At six o’clock , we arrived at our waggons, having

travel led the distance in half an hour less time thanin the m orning. I there imm ediately inquired of

January and Roeping whether they had found thethings that I had lost on the road . To my j oy, theyb ad

,though not al l— the palm -nut and some pieces of

clothing were returned to m e,but my pipes and some

other articles t he bov s assured me they could not

find,but I did not m rnd that . My portmanteau and

some of the canvas the thoughtful Captain Tyson hadm eanwhile got repaired by a German who was livingnear the Tukwi River and understood work of thatkind . My portm anteau was newagain as strong as ever.

My little Kafir attendant seem ed greatly pleased

with the large company, but Mr. Selous made a bet

with Mr. Rhodes that the boy would very soon run

back to his kraal .

MY NEW R OY VANISHES . 309

We enj oyed a fine supper, and spent our last nightwith Mr. Selous

,Dr. Jameson and Mr. Brabant in a

very pleasant way. At three the following m orningwe bade these gentlemen God-speed, and again tookup the journey. My Kaflr boy was nowhere to b eseen ; no doubt Ire had turned back with the Kafirswho had carried the baskets. Perhaps this was best,after al l.


CHAPTER XXVII.

Captain Tyson’s dip—How Mr. Vluggi lost his way- A gum game

—A meeting with some disappointed diggers—The scene of

young Hackwell’

s death—A fool i sh hunt—I shoot an al ligator—Cap tain Tyson preposes a race—I accept the chal lenge, and

come off victorious .

MR. VAN DER BIJL, son of the much-respected Lourens,now j oined our party with the intention to accompanyus up to Tuli, whence he would returnwith the waggonstogetherwith Dr. Jam eson and Mr. Jam es .At a quarter to seven we arrived at a green Spruit.Som e beautiful large trees

, am ongst which was a hugefig

-tree, stood near the s tream . We had hoped to havea nice napunder them ,

but on our return from ourbathwe found the place occupied by six diggers and six

donkeys . Nothing was left for us but to return toourwaggons and have our nap there .Close to where we had outspanned there was a pool

into which a sm ooth rock projected . At the lower sideof this rock Captain Tyson,

who was as m uch afraidof crocodiles as m en of old were of ghosts, stood inAdam ’s apparel washing himself. The soapy waternaturally caused the stone to be very sl ippery, but thecaptain apparently did not think of that. Finished

312 WITH RHODES IN IIIASHONALAND.

at a place he had never seen before . He was stil l inhis pyjamas

, and al l that he had with him was a

shot-gun and a game-bag . What was he to do ? Henow becam e seized with anxiety ; bu t indefatigablyhe continued seeking his way. But hours and hourselapsed and he had not m ade any progress ; he hadshouted, he had fired

, b ut all to no effect. At aboutsix in the evening he arrived at a grassy spotnear to a pool of water, and there, t ired out and

abandoning all expectation of finding his way ere

night,he sat down in the faint hope that some Kafir

m ight turn up and rel ie ve h im from his pl ight .Night approached and Vluggi stil l found him selfalone . Fortunately he had matches in his gam e-bag .

Before darkness set in, hundreds of animals came to

drink water at the pool, and Vluggi, who noticedal l this

,becam e aware that his s ituat ion was m ore

dangerous than he had expected . He collected somebranches and grass and arranged a l ittle shelteringplace for him self

, and there he was left undisturbedt i ll m idnight

,when some lions in the reeds close by

began to rear. The fire he had lit he made larger,thinking by that means to keep the beasts from him

but,instead of retreating, the animals came nearer,

and Vl uggi was startled by two l ions m aking theirappearance . His anxiety was now raised to thehighest pitch ; but, retaining his presence ofm ind, heran to the one side of the fire when the l ions wereon the other, the animals keeping at a radius ofsom e

t en yards from the fire. If they had had the senseto separate— the one to lie in wait for t he man whilstthe other drove him round— they would soon have

MR. VLUGGI’S LION ADVENTURE. 313

had a good m eal, but they were too stupid to do that.Wel l

, as it was, the circular chase continued for a

while . Mr. Vluggi had his shot-gun in his hand , buthe would not shoot at the animals

,for he knew he

could not kil l them with guinea- fowl shot, and to haveinjured them would only have infuriated them and

have made his position worse. He decided to fire one ortwo Shots in the Open air. The l ions answered thereport by a few loud growls, and trotted away . The

m oon at last appeared above the horizon, and at fouro ’clock in the m orning Mr. Vluggi discovered whichd irection he should take . Keeping in the correctcourse

,he arrived at nine o ’clock at the telegraph

wire. Guided by this wire, he continued his waynorthwards until he cam e to the river on the banksof which his waggon was standing . Naturally he wasthen exceedingly fatigued ; he fired off som e shots,and his Kafirs, hearing them , ran towards the placewhence the report came, and there found theirmasterin tattered pyjam as.

Never,said Mr. Vluggi,

“ shall I forget thosethirty hours !Mr. Vluggi and a fel low-traveller ofhis

,Mr. Forbes,

went through a rather unpleasant business the dayprevious to our meeting them . Som e Kafirs hadstolen an ex from Mr. Vluggi. Discovering this

,

his companion and he endeavoured to find the thievesby m eans of tracing their footsteps

, and in this theysucceeded . The footprints led them to a kraal

,and

there they found the skin and som e of the flesh of theox . The punishment they infl icted on the guiltyparty was fifteen lashes wi th the sjambok to each


man, and a payment to be made by them of nine

goats and a number of assegais . The punishmentwas carried out in full . The assegais we were shown.

Mr. Vluggi i s a gentlem an well known to our Prem ier,

as well as to Captain Tyson and Mr. Lange. He was

now on h is way to Mashonaland as m anager there of

the De Beers Syndicate.

At four in the afternoon we were ready to resum e

the j ourney . But before we set out I thought I would

pay a visit to the six diggers, who were still sittingunder the fig-tree wi th their donkeys. I asked themwhere they came from .

“ From the so-called gold -fields answered one.

And where are you goingTo the Cape Colony

,

” they replied.

And why did you not stay a l ittle longer to test

your fortune ?Because that ’s all nonsense ! was the surly answer.

Look here,” I said, do you see the sun — well, as

true as you see that sun, you wil l regret that you

have left Mashonaland . You are treading upon goldfields and you don

’t know i t ; fortune l ies beneath

your feet, and you won’t have it. Mark my words,

you wil l repent this blunder.

”

One of the six earnestly looked into my eyes andsaid, Sir, every word you have just uttered i s true.

I have told my friends the same, but they won’t listen

to m e.

Too late, sir, replied another; Capeward we go !I left them ,

and we departed with our waggons .

Towards evening we outspanned upon an elevation,and

the following m orning at two we again set forth and


At last Mr. Rhodes shot a pheasant. We could see

in the sand the distinct traces of hippopotam i,lions

,

bucks and many other animals , smal l as wel l as largebut the anim als them selves kept out of sight. Nothingwas passed which was not adm ired— trees and shrubs,hills and dales, and

,crowning al l, the majestic river

itself, which ran now wide,then narrow

,now straight,

then winding , now smooth , then rippling, whilst here

and there a crocodile was to be noticed on a sandbank .

To have reached the place where the game wasusually m et wi th we should have continued our coursefor another hour ; but for that we did not feelinclined . We decided to cross the Lundi, so as toreturn to our waggons by a different way to that bywhich we had come . In the m iddle of the streamstood a l ittle green i sland . We made for i t

,tied

our horses to each other upon it, and took a bath .

I must say i t was fool ish of us to turn back to our

waggons so soon. We should have taken breakfastand gone out for a day’s hunt . If we had taken a

three or four hours ’ ride up the riverwe very probablywould have m et the giraffes whose footprints we saw

almost everywhere . But,instead

,we had acted like

children who knew no better. We had set out in the

morning before we had breakfasted and before the

horses had had any thing to eat . As was to b e expected,when eleven o ’clock arrived our empty stom achs cravedfor food, as did these also of our horses . Nothing wasleft us but to return to our camp . Such hunting wasindeed ridiculous . I am glad to say that I was notthe initiator of it.On the other side of the stream we found the trees

THE SUGAR-LOAF RIVER. 317

and shrubbery no less dense than on the banks fromwhich we had j ust crossed over. Strange to say, thought he fresh footprints of hippopotam i , as well as those of

lions,were to be observed on the ground whereverwe

looked , not a single hippopotamus or lion did we

see. For all I know, however, we m ight have passedseveral ofthe latter, because on the Shores of the Lundithe growth is very dense at som e parts, and it i s in suchplaces that lions generally hide during clay- tim e. Athalf-past eleven we were back at ourwaggons . The

first thing we did there was, of course, to take breakfast, and an unusually large one i t was.

A t three in the afternoon we visited an . old ruinwhich

,to a smal l extent, resembled the temple at

Simbab e and appeared to b e the remains of a buildingofburnt brick.

At hal f-past fourwe left the Lundi, and next stopped

at the Sugar-Loaf River, or, as the Kafirs call i t, the

Ingwesi. It was striking to see how much the SugarLoaf Hill (from which the stream gets its nam e) re

sembled a real sugar-loaf.We l eft the river at two the following m orning

and at sevenwe outspanned again. After taking coffeewe once m ore set out for a hunt. My horse was veryslow and could not keep pace wi th those of my two

companions,Mr. Rhodes and Mr. James . I therefore

ceased accompanying them ,and began parrot- shooting

instead,but the birds were so wi ld that I had no chance

of hitting any. However, I shot som e turtle-doves .R iding up the side of the stream ,

I came to a beautifulbathing-place . I tied my horse to a tree and began

undressing myself to take a dash in the cool,clear


water. Looking up to a rock in front of m e, I wasstartled to see what I took to be a large cayman. Theanimal, instead of fleeing out of my sight, remainedsitting at perfect ease, and gazed at m e contemptu

ously.

“ My friend,

” I thought,this impudence I

will not tolerate,and possibly you intend to make

closer acquaintance with m e,and prevention i s

better than cure.

” I took up my gun and shot theanimal , sending it spinning down the rock . Going tolook what i t was

,I found it to be a young alligator.

I took my bath in peace and returned to the waggons .Shortly afterwards the o ther huntsmenarrived, bring

ing with them noth ing m ore than a couple of turtledoves . We left the Ingwesi, and at seven in theevening we halted at an open spot surrounded by a fewtrees.We resum ed the journey at half-past three the fol low

ing m orning, and at sixwewere compelled to stop againbecause of an acc ident to ourwaggon i t ran against atree, the axle broke , and one of the fore-wheels fell out .Thi s caused great disappointm ent

,and was a source of

much trouble . We could do nothing with the waggonbut leave i t behind

,for i t was now utterly useless

to us. All the goods that had been packed upon it

we rem oved to the other waggons .The next river we cam e to was the Nionetse. Here

we stopped and invigorated our bodies in the freshstream . This was the place from which Captain Tysonwired us in November last that two ofhis waggons hadcapsized

,and that a horse had gone astray .

The weatherwas exceptionally hot, the thermometer

reading 100 dog . in the shade. The sky soon became


silly though they thought we were,took a l ively

interest in the race. My rival soon l ost ground, andthe fartherwe walked the greater became the distancebetween us. The hill

,wh ich was three hundred feet

high,I cl imbed like a boy. I had lost much weight

during m y travel from Beira t o Um tal i , so I was ableeasily to stand a little exertion. Captain Tyson, on theother hand— who had been living a k ingly life in a

waggon during the timeMr. Rhodes, Major Johnson and

I were j ourneying from Beira to Salisbury and had to

contend with so many adversities— had considerably

gained in weigh t . Well , soon he began to breathe like awhale. I rested on the summ it at the telegraph-ofli cefor a fewm inutes

,and when my friend was half way up

the h ill I m ade my way down again. He walked witha st ick, I with nothing. At a quarter to two I was backat the waggons . I again rested a while and then partookof a bath along with Mr. Rhodes

,Mr. Lange andMr.

v an der B ij l . When we came out of the water CaptainTyson returned from his walk ; he was as wet withperspiration as a m an who had been playing footbal lfor the first time. I had compassion on him ,

for he

looked sorely fatigued . His gentle, friendly glance at

m e deprived m e of the heart to chaff h im .

Good friend,” I said to him,

I have beaten you !In walking, there

’s no doubt,I am yourmaster. Now,

let us have a whiskey together. Your fiv e pounds youm ay keep , for you have already been sufficientlypunished.

CHAPTER XXVIIT

Secluded hut s—Evidence of a struggle between animals—A viewof a huge crocodile—Captain Tyson deceived—He has a nastyfal l—At the Boob i River—In search of water—The snakehunts the cayman and the boys hunt the snake—Van Ris t ’swonderful adventure.

BETWEEN three and four there was a heavy downpourof rain

,and the atmosphere in consequence becam e

much cooler and fresher.

Early the next m orning Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Jamesand I went out hunting. We rode by the side of theriver until we came to a tributary, up along whichwe turned. On the top of a steep kopje som e

distance off we discerned three Kafir huts built uponrocks . This we thought strange, because all the

country round about was a lonesome wi lderness inwhich there was no trace ofhuman beings

,and inwhich

we did not in the least expect to find any. We madein the direction of the huts, and soon we arrived at thegardens belonging

,to the Kafirs on the kopje

,but of the

Kafirs them selves we Spied none . A drizzling rainnow cam e down

,and instead of the air—which had

been m isty during the m orning—becom ing clearer inconsequence, it grew darker, and so prevented us fromseeing far ahead. No wonder, therefore, that we saw


no gam e, although we were constantly com ing across

fresh footmarks .We crossed a brook

,and in the soft drift-sand on one

side of it we could clearly see that a struggle betweentwo large animals had taken place there a l ittle prev iously. We alighted from our horses in order toexam ine the marks in the sand m ore closely, and wedistinctly observed the fresh footprints of a lion and a

koodoo . The only conclusion to be drawn was that al ion had there sprung upon a koodoo and dragged itaway. I was then anxious to trace the lien on its“ Spoor

,but

,unfortunately, none of us had any ex

perience in l ion-hunting, and we knew it would b edangerous to attack such an animal when on its prey .

It is a pi ty we did not have Mr. Selous with us at thi sjuncture .

R iding fartherwe soon found that we had taken a

wrong course . Luckily, however, the weather soonafterwards cleared up

,and we again descried the three

huts we had noticed on the rocky cliff, so we knewwhereabout we were and which way to take. Crossingsom e stream lets, on the side ofwhich there were somelarge pools, Mr. Jam es and I, riding side by side

,

discerned on the brink of one of them a large blackobject. We rode a l ittle nearer to it to find out whatit was.

“ Man, said my companion, i t is a m onstrous

crocodile.

“ Well,

” I suggested ,“ let us dismount here and

creep nearer before we shoot at i t.“ N said Mr. Jam es,

“ let us ride a little furtherbefore we get down.

”


distance ahead of us . He did not expect that we

would outspan at the river, nor had it been our

intention to do so ; but when we cam e to it the water

was so tempting that we resolved to tarry there a

while. Captain Tyson, ignorant of this, steadily rode

on until,twenty-five m inutes afterwards, he discovered

on looking round that no waggon was following. He

a t once turned back, and three-quarters of an hour

after we had seen h im last he arrived at the waggons,where he was hai led by a row of laugh ing faces . Thegood captain felt somewhat perplexed .

We went into the river. Poor Captain Tyson ! Heundressed himself, stepped into the water, then gotupon a large sm ooth stone

, b ut he had hardly done sowhen his foot slipped, he lost his balance, and

,as

he fell,bang struck his head against another

stone. As quick as thought,however, he stood upon

his legs again and feigned not to have been hurt inthe least . Of course we had another iolly laugh at

the expense ofour unlucky friend .

My dear man,

” I said to him ,what is the matter

with you ? Why have you made it a rule to fal ll ike that ? You ’l l break your neck if you go on likethis ! ”

“ Well, old man, he replied

,

“ i f you had fallen as

I had, you would certainly have made no j oke of it ! ”

But,my friend,

” I said , wi th a show of sympathy,I started when I saw you fal l—I started very muchbut when you rose so suddenly and showed so calm

,

innocent a face, I could not help laughing .

”

Seeing that the Captain’s head had really had a bad

collison with the stone, I tried my utmost to be serious

CAPTAIN TYSON’

S FALL. 325

and Show h im due compassion, but, as the picture of

the ludicrous m ishapand the Captain’s sedate attitudefo llowing it reappeared to my m ind

,I found it

impossible to retain my serenity , and,much to the

irrita tion of my friend, as well as to my own dissat is

faction, I could not prevent another hearty ou tburst .I mysel f had had two falls sim i lar to those of theCaptain, though not nearly so serious .We returned to our waggons and had our breakfast,

afterwhich we had som e fun in teasing Captain Tysonabout his clumsiness. The Captain, who sat nearto m e

,

then made m e feel the part ofhi s head that had struckthe stone. There was a big bump . Three m inutesafterwards he suddenly and unexpectedly fel l forwardin an unconscious state, his head dropping on my

breast. Fun was now changed into seriousness . We

washed his head wi th v inegar and resorted to everym eans available to get his senses restored. Soon afterhe recovered .

The land round about us was hilly and woody, andthe veld of a good charac ter. Polony-trees, so calledfrom the shape of their remarkably large fruits

, grew

there in abundance. I picked a. polony twenty-twoinches in length, sixteen inches in c ircumference

,and

fifteen pounds in weight . It is dangerous to sit undera polony-tree when its fruits are ripe the fal l ofa fruitUpon one’s head would stun him .

At two o’

clock the following m orning we inspanned,

and at six we stopped at the Boobi R iver. Half anhour later Mr. Rhodes

,Mr. James and I went out

hunting . We stayed ou t m ore than two hours and

cam e across some hal f-a-dozen koodoos, but it was in


vain that we shot at them . At eleven o ’c lock we

returned to ourwaggons to take breakfast. It was at

thi s place,the Boob i, that Lord Randolph shot the

l ions,quaggas and koodoos— at least, so he said in

his letters . It is, however, true that the shores of theBoob i has a reputation for abounding in numerouskinds of large game.

\Ve were m et by Messrs . Fry and Ell iott at theriver. These gentlem en complained that there werenot suffic ient huts and barns for the whites ln the

country .

At four we left the Boob i and at seven we had

finished our day ’s journey. At two the next morningwe started again

,and at seven we arrived and stopped

at the Umshab etsi, a tributary of t he Limpopo, and a

large,dry, sandy river closely resembling the Buffalo,

Dwyka and Gamka in the Cape Colony— an indicationthat we no longer found oursel ves on the plateaux ofMashonaland. We had to dig in the sand for water

,

and our oxen had to be sent several m iles down the

river to drink at some pool s . The dusty road and theoppressive weather had made our bodies sorely need abath

,but there was no waternear in wh ich to take i t.

Captain Tyson, Mr. Lange and I decided to saddleour horses, ride down t he river and take a plungeinto the firs t pool at which we should arrive. We rode

and rode— and it was not before we had ridden at leasteight m iles that we came to som e pools . Our thirstyoxen had to walk the same distance . We told the

boys who were driving the poor animals to let themgraze round about the water, there being plenty of

grass, that we would send them their dinnerwith some


exceedingly warm one -so m uch so, that wecould hardly sleep . In the waggon the air was tooclose, so Mr. Lange and I Spread our karosses outsideon the bare ground, and lay there without any covering . The Prem ier’s couch was of a different kind. An

arm chair was his bed. Throwing himsel f into it withh is head resting over the back of it, he slept in thatposture all night .At ten m inutes past two the following morning we

set out again and had to put upwith as much dus t aswe had had the day before . At sunrise we came tothe Um zingwane, a broad stream with densely wooded

banks.It was between this river and our last hal tingplace that v an Riet

,a youth much liked by al l

who knew him ,spent those m emorable

,m iserable forty

days of his life. He was on his way to Sal isbury withsome Sisters of Mercy, when, one day, having walkedtoo far from his waggons, he lost his way. The Sisters

on m issing him naturally grew alarmed, and sent out

m en in search of him ; but, after waiting for himfor several days and discovering no trace of him

,they

natural ly presum ed tha t he had met his death somehow and som ewhere in the wilds, and so continuedtheir journey to Sal isbury without him . To theirextrem e amazement and j oy, however, the lad was

again found and handed over to them . To relate indetail the sufferings and anxiety the young fellow hadhad to endure during those forty days he wandered inthe wi lds would require as m any pages. The huntsm en who discovered him had been in search of waterwhen thev observed the boy

’s footprints in the sand.

RESOUED FROM DEATH. 329

Following them, they eventually arrived at the spo tthey sought. There the boy sat with bent back and

in utter despair and m isery in front of a l ittle holeofwater that he had dug with his hands . His finger

nails were worn away up to the naked flesh,having

been employed for digging into t he hard earth for

roots and water, and his teeth were blunt and broken,

owing to the hard wild dates he had been chewing .

He was not‘

far from dead when discovered,and was

already sem i -unconscious . In fact,he would not have

l ived a day longer had he not been rescued . Thekind hunters did al l within their power to restore hisstrength

,and in this they happily succeeded .


CHAPTER XXIX .

A koodoo shot—Mr. Rhodes’ ligh t waggon—I over-persuade mycompanions, and we all s tart together for BechuanalandPikenin leaves m e—On the track ofour previous journey—Aninvitation at Macloutsi in which I am not included .

Nor far from us som e waggons stood outspanned .

Two of the gentlemen belonging to them— the one a

Mr. Malherbe and the other a Mr. Vivier— came to usand invited us to accompany them on a giraffe-hunt .They assured us that they were experienced huntsmenand knew the country well . We accepted the invitation. The hunting-party consisted of Mr. Rhodes

,Mr.

Malherbe,Mr. Vi vier, Mr. Jam es

,Roeping and myself,

all on horseback . Having ridden a couple of hours,

we came to a place where the footmarks of variouslarge animals were to be seen

,amongst them those of

the giraffe. We rode on and m et a groupofkoodoos .Becom ing excited, everyone, except m yself, dashed inm ad pursuit after the animals

,each choosing a different

course, with the result that within a few m inutes Icould not see a man

,not even Roeping . Bang ! bang

bang ! I heard on every side, but my fellow-travellerswere soon such a distance from me tha t not the firingeven could I hear. I rode on

,but

,com ing acros s

neither man nor koodoo, I decided to ride back


could do nothing with it. He was displeased that wehad left him so soon, b ut we cared but little for that .We left the Umz ingwane at four in the afternoon,

journeyed right on for fiv e hours, and ou t spanned uponan Open plain. Night set in and

,with it

, the vexatiousyelping of the hyaenas . Nothing would have pleasedm e m ore that night than to see every hyaena in the landcarcass . Mr. Rhodes again slept in his armchair.

At two the next morning we set off again, and at

three we passed the R iver Spag i, on one of the bordersof which there stood a smal l straw-built hotel—an

ordinary hut . At six we came to a spruit within fiv em iles of Fort Tuli . After stopping there three hourswe again advanced

,and at half-past ten— Saturday

,

November the 14th—we reached Fort Tuli . On our

previous trip to the North we arrived at the fort onthe 1st of November ; it was now,

therefore,a littl e

m ore than a year since we had last visited it. Theprevious year on my arri v al there I felt as though Ihad reached the northern end of Africa— so far theplace seemed to b e from Capetown ; now,

however, I felta s though I stood on the border of the Cape Colony . Itbeing a hot day, the Tul i R iver was a boon to us ; i fit had not been there, I do not know how we wouldhave borne the excessive heat . In the afternoon itbegan to rain

,and the air becam e cooler in con

sequence .

The l ight waggon forwhich Mr. Rhodes had wiredto Palapye had arrived at Tuli . Mr. Lange and I wentto exam ine it. To my judgment , the vehicle, thoughvery light, was pretty strong . Not so

,however, did i t

appear to the eye of my friend ; in no way did it sui t

MY HOME GIVES ME A BA T1].

his taste,and he denounced it as being too frail to carry

the combined weight of Mr. Rhodes, Captain Tyson,him self andm e. He therefore proposed that we shouldleave it and ride instead in the coach of Mr. Zeederberg,

and he succeeded in getting the Prem ier to agree wi thhim . To Captain Tyson it was imm aterial what wedid . I, howev er, pleaded for the l ittle waggon, and Iordered a blacksm ith to tightly t ie some leather strapsaround its springs so as to strengthen them .

The following day the weatherwas jus t as oppressh eas

, i f not worse than, it had been the day before. In

the m orning we rode on horseback to the river,once

m 0 1e to take delight in the sweet, clear water. On

our return, the fore-feet of my horse sank into theclayey sand of the river

, with the resul t that I slidover i ts head into the water, which was four feet deep .

O f course m y clothes becam e soaking wet , b ut Id id not m ind it— in fact

,I rather l iked it -for the

rays of the sun were scorchingly hot. My horse easilygot up again.

In the afternoon Mr. Zeederberg arrived at Tuli wi thh is coach drawn by eigh t dapple-grey horses, whichlooked very attractive . Mr. Zeederberg urged thePrem ier to get into the coach and travcl with him to

the Transvaal,but I detested the idea of taking the

same road we had travelled the year before, and myantipathy to it was strengthened by the prospect ofourm eeting the Adendorff party again

,of whose sickening

argumentation in favour of their so-called BanyailandConcession I had had m ore than enough . I was determ ined

,though all my com panions should have decided

to leave m e, not to return home m’

d Transvaal— I


wanted to travel with the light waggon throughKhama

’s land and Bechuanaland. The pro’s and con’sof the two routes having been ful ly discussed, it wasfinally decided that we should all leave with the newl i tt le spring waggon at three the nex t m orning. Atfirst we had intended t o leave at t en o ’clock in the

evening , but , as there was no moonlight,and as i t

was rather rainy,we had to postpone our departure

till the m orning.

The sam e evening we were invited to dinner byCaptain Tye. The guests, m ost ofwhom were m il itaryofficers, numbered about fifteen. At t en o’clock Ireturned to our waggons. Captain Tyson and Mr.

Lange did not retire before twelve. Bandmaster hadsinned agains t Mr. Lange in som e way or other duringthe evening, and the latter so lost his temper about i tthat he kicked up a very unseem ly rowwi th the poorm ortal , and it term inated in Bandmaster ge tting a

severe thrashing— a punishm ent wholly undeserved.

I was very cross wi th my friend, especial ly so becauseit was the last night that Bandmasterwas to be with us

— he was to quit our service the following day. And

how could I sleep whi lst such a noise was going on !

No, with all due respect and love to our Epie,I must

say he was very unreasonable that night. I hadnever seen him so turbulent before .We left Fort Tuli on Monday m orning at half-past

four and had to travel in a very muddy road, as it had

rained al l the night. We sat,six of us

,in the l ittle

waggon—Mr. Rhodes and m yself at the back, CaptainTyson and Mr. Lange in the m iddle

, and Tonie and

Arri in front. The two waggons and the cart with


some lim b of the vehicle would break,for whenever

our road was downhill al l we could do was to clingto our seats and hold our breath .

At a quarter-past six we stopped at the BaobabR iver

,and there had breakfast . At seven we left

the stream , and, wi th a new team of oxen, fresh and

v igorous,our waggon ran so fast

'

with us that thewind b umm ed in our ears . The animals could not

,

however, keep up this speed for long, so we were soonagain travelling like a sane party .

At half-past eleven we outspanned at Sim ilali, a spotat which we spent nearly an entire day the year before,as there was plenty of grass and water

,and a beauti ful

m im osa-tree . Having taken ourm idday m eal,we pro

ceeded again at half-past one, our road taking us intothe Mapani Forest

,where a large variety of birds

was to be met with . Thunder-clouds m eanwhilebegan to gather. At three we outspanned to al lowthe animals a little relaxati on, and soon we set off

again. Rain now came down in torrents, and pealafter peal of thunder seemed to rend the air ; b ut Arri ,the driver

,who paid bu t l ittle heed to the state of the

weather,advised us to travel as fast as we could ;

there was no need to fear the oxen fai ling, for at

everv outspan-place— that is, after every two hours’

or

two and a hal f hours ’ drive—there was a fresh teamwaiting for us . Rain fell throughout the night.At one o

’

c lock next m orning we arrived beforea river through which old Arri was afraid to drive.Mr. Rhodes, however, was determ ined to go throughit . We bade him be m ore reasonable and not riskhis life in a river ofwh ich his knowledge was next to

AT MACLOUTSI CAMP . 337

nothing. In order to ascertain its depth ,'

we m ade theleader of the oxen walk into the stream . The waterreached a l i ttle above the m iddle ofhis body . We con

sidered i t shallow enough to cross, and through we drove .

Of sleeping was not to be thought . How Arrim anaged to pass all the trees growing by the roadsidewithout running the waggon against any is to me a

puzzle. At a quarter-past six we arrived at theMacloutsi Camp , where al l were still apparently asleep .

We wanted to prepare coffee, but the wood and the

ground were so wet that we could hardly light a

fire . lVe had outspanned in front of the shop of anEnglish gentleman, a Mr. Howm an

,and we had not

been there long when the shop -proprietor cam e toinvite Mr. Rhodes, Captain Tyson and Mr. Lange totake coffee in his house. Me, however, though I wasstanding next to the other gentlemen, he did not

invite . I,

fel t m ore than insulted at this snobbishtreatm ent. I bel ieve I was as wel l-dressed as anyof m y fellow-travel lers, and appeared as respectable.

“ Howman,” I thought, “ hill s and m ountains do not

part and m eet, b ut men do ; the day may come whenwe shall m eet again IThis m atter rem inded m e of a somewhat sim i larincident which took place when I was a young m an

,

and was making my first trip to the Free State in“

company with a brother ofm ine. There was of courseno rai lway at that time by which to travel . We

j ourneyed by cart . As we were passing through theMurraysburg district we one nigh t came to the farmof a Mr. Theron, who —very inconsistent with Boerhospital ity—for som e inexpl icable reason del iberately

Z


refused to sel l us either m eat or bread or even foragefor our tired and hungry horses . But we so humblybegged him to give us som ething, and offered him suchhigh prices for what we asked, that he ultimately gaveus som e old dry bread, such as I would not give mydog

, and a tough thin piece of meat,charging us fiv e

shillings for them ; and for our horses he let us have

two oat -sheaves for three shill ings . I was then twentyyears of age. Twenty-two years afterwards I met an

aged farm er at the Middleburg Bond Congress,who

came to m e to m ake my acquaintance. We begantalking to each other, and somehow the unpleasantnight I had spent at Mr. Theron’s came back to m ym ind

,and

,by questioning the gentleman as to who

he was and where he l ived , I discovered that hewas the very Mr. Theron who had so shabbily treatedus . I then rem inded him of the incident and verypolitely, though not less frankly, told him—what Iwould fain have told him twenty—two years ago, butdared not— what I thought ofm en ofhis kind .

We had breakfast in a smal l restaurant,and at

eight o’clock We were ready to leave Macloutsi. At thispoint a number ofoffi cers , who had just got out of bedand were still rubbing their eyes, came to the waggonand m ade a score of excuses to the Managing Directorof the Chartere d Company for not having known of

his com ing. Dressed in the1r m i litary attire, theywished to honour the Prem ier by escort ing him som e

distance out of Macloutsi, but the latter, who hatedanything of that kind, bade them leave him .

Within the last twenty-four hours we had travelledseventy m iles.


chief prom ising to com e and see us in his town. We

outspanned near the t elegraph~ofiice at Palapye and

carried on som e communication by wire with ourpeopleat Capetown.

At five o ’clock our l ittle waggon was ready to leavePalapye ; i t had a new driver

,Arri remaining behind

in Kham a’s capital , where h is fam ily was l iving .

Captain Ty son and Mr. Lange were to follow thewaggon with a large tester-cart, and Mr. Rhodesrequested them

,before we left, not to tarry long in the

town.

Khama, who had followed our waggon to his townshortly afterwe met him at hi s ploughs

,and who was

desirous to discuss som e matters with the CharteredCompany

’s Managing Director,but could not talk

English , now cam e to ask Mr. Rhodes to go with himto his interpreter. To this request the Prem ier readilyacceded . Mr. Rhodes, Khama

,Mr. Moffat, junior,

and myself then rode on horseback to the interpreter’s,

al lowing our waggon m eanwhile to proceed . Arrivedat. the interpreter

’s,the Prem ier and the chief entered

his hou se, whilst Mr. Moffat and I rem ained out

side. Khama complained of the conduct of MissionaryHepburn, who had faithfully worked among hispeople for twenty years bu t had latterly begun to playthe m aster in the country . Khama, as ruler over hispeople

,claim ed that he knew his work well, and could

not bear—perhaps reasonably so— to see anothercommand his subjects . The natural result of Mr.

Hepburn’s behaviourwas the growth ofdiscord betweenthe chief and the m issionary

,and the quarrel ended in

Khama leaving Mr. Hepburn the alternative of sub

A BBUTE OF A HORSE. 341

mitting to him or of quitting the country . The m issionary thereupon left the land, and, as I am informed,

i s now in London complaining to the authorities thereabout the conduct of the Bamangwato chief.At seven o’clock we said good-bye to Kham a. It

was pretty dark then. Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Moffathad good horses ; m ine was a good-for-nothing brutethat seemed to take del ight in bringing its riderin contact with Mother Earth as often as possible.

It was not very pleasant to ride on such a horseat such a speed as that at which we were going .

Upon my word, we rode like three John G ilp ins .

Mr. Moffat was anxious to overtake t he waggon and

return t o Palapye , whi lst Mr. Rhodes was not at eas

so long as the waggon remained out of his sight. I,though desirous of rid ing at a less speed

,had to do as

my companions did , for I would under no circum stanceslag behind , being a perfect stranger to t he road . Thefirst time my horse stumbled, bo th it and I fell fiatupon the ground , but we were soon up again. The

second time it fel l I flew over i ts head, m y poorface sweeping the sand . I mounted again and rodeas hard as I could to overtake the others

,but my

poor creature would lag beh ind . My companions didnot trouble them sel ves at al l about m e, their m indbeing fixed on only one thing— the waggon. My horseand I now had our third tumble and this was the worstfal l ofall— the animal rolled right o v erme. I thoughtmy Spine was broken. I arose, wiped the sand frommy eyes, and, as loud as my throat could ye ll

,I

shouted to my friends to s top . They fortunatelyheard me and turned back . I was busy putting

WITH RHODES IN MASHONALAND .

the saddle right when Mr. Rhodes arrived at thescene .What is the matterwith you ?

” he asked,rather

unpleasantly.

I have to ride a clum sy, rotten thing, I answered,wi th a deep groan

,which has now for the third time

tumbled with me, and this tim e I’

v e been seriouslyhurt. It is not over-kind of you and Mr. Mofi

'

at toleave me in the lurch in the dark in a country entirelyunknown to m e. My back has been so badly injuredthat I can go no farther.

”

Turning to Mr. Moffat, I told him he ought to beasham ed of himself for having m ade me ride such a

m iserable beast. I have,”1 said

,

“ much experienceof horses

,and I have trained at least a dozen

,but

never in my l ife did I sit upon an animal so un

deserving the nam e of horse as this thing here. Myneck is not quite so cheap, my friend, as you appearto think .

”

Both ofthem then appeared ratheranxious about me.

“ What is real ly the m atterwith you ?”asked Mr.

Rhodes again. Why can you ride no farther? ”

“ My back is too painful ! ” I replied, with a

pretence of great suffering . As a m atter of fact, myback had not been so seriously injured as I feigned

,

but I knew that i f I did not exaggerate a bit I wouldb e thrown behind aga in and run the risk of losingmy way.

My com panions asked m e to try to m ount the horseagain, prom ising they would not desert m e. I hadgained my object. I once m ore got upon my so-cal ledhorse , and we proceeded.


obtaining our new team of oxen, as well as a new

leader. It was indeed a pleasure to see how the youngleaders ran in front of the oxen A good idea of therate at which they were running can be form ed byrem embering that we left Macloutsi at a quarter-pasteight on the eleventh, and arrived at Palapye at threeo ’clock on the eighteenth— a distance ofone hundredand eighteen m iles. W

'

hetherLby night or by day,we could invariably tel l when it was a Matabele boywho was leading the oxen, for he always sang whi lstrunning , always seemed m erry, and never ran slowly .

Exposed to heat and cold though his naked bodywas, he seemed very content with his lot . It was

always a pleasure to me to work with Matabele or

Inhambane Kafirs they never grumbled at any thing Igave them to do, however difficult the task—whatevertheirm aster told them received theiramen. But then,don’t forget, these Kafirs were not brought up at m is

sion stations,and had, therefore, not been impressed

that they were in every respect the white man 8 equal .The following day we arriv ed at Notwani

,where a

coach was awaiting us. The driver wished us to wai tfor Captain Tyson and Mr. Lange, but neither Mr.

Rhodes nor I felt inclined to do so, for we did not

know how far behind they were st i ll, and we were

anxious to reach home as soon as possible ; besides,Mr. Rhodes had distinctly told them before we leftthem at Palapye to follow the waggon without delay,assuring them that he would not wai t for them at

Notwani. They had,therefore, them selves to blam e

for not being with us now.

( 345 )

CHAPTER XXXI .

Cx-waggon subs t i tu ted by m ail-coach— Lmd Randolph and the

m ules— My anx iety not to dis turb h is lordship’s res t A rapidrun to Mafeking—Th e t ioub les of fam e—Mr. Rhodes m akesa speech at Fourteen Stream s—A t Kimberley .

IVE brought al l our luggage over from the waggon tothe coach . The waggon was st il l as sound and strongas the day we had s tarted with it . At seven o

’clockwe left Notwani. We had now to give up all hopeof enj oying on our further j ourney the company ofCaptain Tyson and Mr. Lange, because, now that wewere to travel by a coach drawn by mules

,it was

imposs ible for these gentlem en to overtake us. I was

v ery sorry to m iss their pleasant society, especially asI knew that m onths would pass before I could m eet

them again.

The Prem ier and I had now six seats in the coachat our disposal . After travelling seventeen m ileswe al lowed the mules a short rest at a l ittle campon Lindswi

’

s territory. At fiv e in the afternoon westopped at another l ittle station, and we were theregiven six fresh strong m ules and two poor thin onestwo that Lord Randolph Churchill had had the graceto leave us, hav ing appropriated for his own servicetwo of the best mules des igned for us. As was to be


expected,the two weak animals caused much trouble

and delay . Mr. Rhodes said not a word about ithe remained quiet, I daresay , for the sake ofpeace . I,however

,felt too much annoyed to hold my tongue.

At the next station we cam e to we found that thevery sam e thing had been done— Lord Randolph hadcoolly taken two of our best m ules

, and had left twoofhis fatigued creatures in their stead . Over the head,eyes and ears the innocent animals had been thrashedwith a sjambok

,a whip made of hippopotamus hide .

At two o’clock in the m orning we arrived at

Mashoudi, a Kafir town where there was a policestation and a telegraph-office. We would not havearrived there so early had I not offered the driversbetween the last two stations a pound each if theydrove as hard as they could . I had an object fordoingso, and that object I gained . I had reason to bel ievethat Lord Randolph would be spending the night inthat Kafir town, and I was anxious that he shouldenj oy his rest undisturbed ! I told the driver to createas l ittle noise as possible when he drove into the town,and he obeyed capitally. The moment the waggonstopped my eye fel l on the waggons ofLord Randolph ,and a cold shock instantly ran through my body. Iwas very much afraid thatwe would accidental ly arousethe nobleman and be compelled to finish the rest ofourjourney in company wi th him ; but I had warned boththe driver and the leader to keep as quiet as possible,and this they did adm irably. When we had changed

ourm ules for a new team and were on the point ofdeparture, Mr. Rhodes asked the “ watch ”

at thestation whether he did not think it advisable to wake

348 WITII RHODES IN MASHONALAND.

tract of pastural country, every now and then m eetingwith native cattle and sheep

,all of which were in

beautiful condition.

Near to Gaberones twenty of the Chartered Com

pany’

s police cam e to m eet Mr. Rhodes . We had tocross the Notwani a second tim e

,and on th is occasion

we did not hesitate to do so, the river being low. We

outspanned on its bank and took a bath in the

pleasant water. At the telegraph office at GaberonesMr. Rhodes received a wire fromLord Randolphstating t hat he was exceedingly sorry that we had

passed h im , and that he had never thought that wewould travel so quickly wi th our oxen as we did.

We took breakfas t at Gaberones and were wel lentertained by the officers there. At eight o ’clockwe Sped on again

, and at t en m inutes past ten we

arrived at Ramoetz i, a di stance of eighteen m i lesfrom Gaberones . Ram oetz i is a pretty l i ttle Kafir

town with a populat ion of about 4500,including a few

whites .After partaking of lunch in the house . of a veryk ind family- whose nam e, I am sorry to say,

I haveforgotten—we left Ram oetz i and were again goingthrough fine country . We m et several herds of cattlealong the way, al l fat and healthy , and now and thenwe passed a lakelet swarm ing with birds.A little before one o

’

clock we cam e to a placecalled Aasv ogelk op, which lay sixteen m iles fromRam oetz i

,a distance which we covered at the rate of

ten m i les per hour ; this was by no m eans bad for

mules,seeing that the road was v ery sandy .

The Chartered Company bored for water at Aasv o

OUR RECEPTION AT MAFEKING . 349

gelkop, and at a depth of about forty feet theystruck a form idable stream . They tried the same

experiment at another station of theirs, with the resultthat at a depth of one hundred and fiv e feet they m et

with copious water. These wel ls, I m ay m ent ion, weresunk in the driest season of the year.

Leaving Aasv ogelkop, we travelled over a v erv

extensive valley , in which Mr. Rhodes shot somekorhaans.

At m idnight we arrived at Mafeking, one hundredand twenty-fiv e m iles from Mashoudi. Our coachstopped in front of an hotel , where a crowd of peoplehad assembled to m eet the Managing Director of theChartered Company . We had expected that al l wouldbe in bed by that time— but howm istaken ! Everyoneof them had someth ing to inqu ire about and somethingto tell . We fel t m ore inclined to sleep than to talk

,

forwe were really very tired, and we told our entertainers so, but it availed nothing. It was not beforetwo o ’clock that they al lowed us to go to bed ; and,had the Prem ier not rem inded them that they couldm eet us the next m orning, I dare say they would havekept us up a great deal longer. Mr. Rhodes and Idecided to start from Mafek ing at five in the morningat the latest. “Te did not make this resolution

,as it

m ight seem , with the set object of escaping thecompany of the Mafeking people— for their companywould be as welcom e as that ofany other at the propertime—but it served that purpose, because the Mafekingans thought that, as the mail-coach was to leaveat eight o ’clock, we would not leave before that hour.

They were,however

,m istaken. We arranged with the


postmaster of the place to have everything ready forour departure by four

,so that our coach could leave a

l ittle before five ; but when we were waked we felt sosleepy still that we decided to devote another halfhour to repose . With a fresh team to our coach we set

out at five m inutes past fiv e. The road was ratherwet

, but this did not prevent our coach from travel l ingat the rate of—well, a Pertuguese train.

At half-past eleven we came to Set tagoli, a smal lstation

,and there

,at a neat little hotel— the only

'

one

there was—we had dinner.

A little before seven we entered Vrijburg, and were

put down at the house of Sir Sidney Shippard, havingcovered that day at least a hundred m iles . In sevendays and six nights we had travelled

,with oxen

,mules

and horses, a distance of not less than 625 m i les , nearlyhalf ofwhich was accom pl ished by oxen. This was a

record travel ; no one else had before completed thatd istance in so short a tim e with only draught animals,and

,I m ay pretty safely assert

,no one ever will . A

fair idea of the speed which we travelled at can b e

form ed by bearing in m ind that 625 m i les is approxim ately the distance between Capetown and Kimberley

,

and that we covered it in less than a week.

We had now practical ly come to the end of our

long journey , and could once more enjoy the com fortsof a house. We felt very “

at home”

at the Ad

m inistrator’

s,who did all he could to make our stay

at his house a pleasant one. We had made his aoquaintance and friendship the year before, when hewas a fel low-travel ler of ours for a portion ofour trip,and we were now glad to enj oy his genial company

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,

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Ith Rhodes In - Forgotten Books

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