70 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



four months with Kafirs for my only companions, I 

 found I could converse tolerably well with them. 



The tract of country in which I was principally 

 hunting was a wild, hilly region, situated in the angle 

 formed with the Zambesi by the river Gwai, which 

 empties itself into the Zambesi about eighty miles 

 to the east of the Victoria Falls. These hills are for 

 the most part thickly wooded, though some are very 

 rocky and precipitous, and nearly all of them rough 

 and thorny. In some parts they open out into broad 

 grassy valleys, which, dotted with clumps of trees and 

 bush, present quite a park-like appearance. Most 

 of these dales are intersected by small rivers, in which, 

 during the dry season, water is usually to be found 

 either in occasional pools or by digging in the sand, 

 whilst after heavy rains thev become veritable 

 torrents. In other parts, again, narrow steep-sided 

 ravines, or "kloofs" as they are called in South 

 African parlance, are met with, the sides and bottoms 

 of which are otten covered with dense jungle, and 

 such places form during the heat of the day a 

 favourite resort of elephants and buffaloes. 



There is also another curious feature presented 

 amongst these hills, which is, that some of them, 

 although steep and rocky on all sides, are perfectly 

 level on the top, like a table, and covered with very 

 thick bush, to which large game are also extremely 

 partial. 



All this tract of country, though claimed by the 

 king of the Matabele, whose father, Umziligazi, 

 drove out its former possessors, is at present unin- 

 habited; but some forty years ago, before these all- 

 conquering Zulus invaded it, murdering or driving 

 away the inhabitants, it must have supported a large 

 population, as the frequent traces of maize-fields, and 



