3o8 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



They repeated the same tale of women killed and 

 carried off, corn burned, etc., which we had heard 

 before, and, to illustrate the way in which they had 

 been shot down, one of them laid a lot of twigs one 

 across another in a heap, each twig representing a 

 dead man. In the afternoon we passed through a 

 lot more burnt villages and found the remains of two 

 Batongas (a man and a woman) lying in the foot- 

 path. Many bodies had been dragged into the 

 neighbouring bush by the hyasnas, and the stench 

 was often offensive as we walked along the bank. 

 In the evening we reached some Banyai kraals that 

 had also been burnt and plundered. 



November 2'T^rd. — Passed through a country that 

 must have been thickly populated by Banyai before 

 the late raid. Now, however, most of the towns 

 were deserted, and we saw nothing but old women, 

 the young ones having all been carried off into 

 slavery. As we passed along, the people turned out 

 en masse^ and accompanied us, clapping their hands, 

 dancing, and the women making a peculiar shrill 

 quavering cry, which was taken up from kraal to 

 kraal, and from hill to hill, on both sides of the 

 river. They evidently thought us representatives of 

 a people who differed altogether in thought, sentiment, 

 and action from the Portuguese, as they overloaded us 

 with praises, calling us " children of the Almighty," 

 and the " people who did not kill or plunder." In 

 the evening we reached Mamba. A few miles below 

 this, the river Sanyati empties itself into the Zambesi 

 from the south, just at the western entrance to Kariba 

 Gorge. Thanks to the rain, which had cooled the 

 ground, the last four nights had been less oppressive 

 than any we had had since leaving Wankie's. The 

 women were here very demonstrative in welcoming 



