4 Men, Mines, and Animals in South Africa. 



nearly a month to the Cape, intending to purchase 

 at Kimbei'ley the waggons, mules, oxen, and 

 horses, to engage the men necessary for such an 

 expedition. To travel in ox or mule waggons 

 without greater discomfort and hardship than is 

 incidental to camp life, a thousand miles to 

 Mashonaland, several hundred miles exploring 

 that country, a thousand miles return journey, 

 occupying in the operation a jDeriod of not less 

 than six months, requires a careful and costly 

 collection of resources and plant, of which I will 

 give a full descrijDtion in a subsequent letter ; to 

 avoid undue delay while the season was favour- 

 able. Major Giles had gone on ahead of me to the 

 Cape. ]My actual travelling companions at the 

 moment of departure wei'e Captain G. Williams, 

 late of the Royal Horse Guards, who had amiably 

 consented to assist me in my business and my 

 writing, Mr. Henry Cleveland Perkins, an American 

 mining engineer of great eminence, and Surgeon 

 Hugh Rayner, of the Grenadier Guards, on leave, 

 Avho intended to co-operate with the finest climate 

 in the world in keeping us in good health, and to 

 mitigate, so far as science might, the consequences 

 of any accident or disaster which an untoward fate 

 might inflict upon us. He was also instructed by 

 the militai-y authorities to furnish them Avith a 

 report on the climatic and hygienic conditions of 

 Mashonaland, to discover and specify healthy sites 

 for camps, and to collect such other information 

 as would be useful to j^ossess beforehand, should 

 military operations ever become necessary in that 

 country. 



