CHAPTER III 



Massacre of a Tribe — Native Dress — ^Remarkable Scenery — Lobengula, 

 King of the Matabele — Umziligazi — Slaughter of the " Headmen " 

 — Battle of Zvvang Indaba — Lions — Piet Jacobs — -Terrible 

 Adventure with a Lion — Mashunas — Elands — Start Hunting 

 with "Cigar" the Hottentot. 



Towards the end of August we left the Tati, pass- 

 ing the Ramaqueban river the following day ; here 

 I hrst saw a sable antelope, one of the handsomest 

 animals in the world. At this river is the grave of 

 an Englishman named Firmin, who was killed here 

 by an elephant, the first he had ever seen. This 

 tract of country had very recently been one of the 

 best hunting-grounds for elephants to be found in 

 South Africa ; but these animals, when much 

 persecuted, soon shift their quarters, and now both 

 elephants and hunters have left these parts. By the 

 river Impakwe is an old native furnace for smelting 

 the gold out of quartz, and a little farther, by the 

 Inkwesi, only a few years ago, Makobi, a Bechuana 

 chief, and his whole tribe — men, women, and children 

 — were exterminated by an army of Umziligazi's 

 warriors ; to this day skulls may be found on the 

 hill-tops, where the old towns were situated. At the 

 time of my first visit there were no Kafirs living 

 near the Inkwesi river, but in 1875 Lobengula 

 established several large towns, where strangers on 



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