198 Men, Mines, and Animaxs in South Africa. 



they will lie down by dozens, never to rise again ; 

 rest them, let them graze, reduce your hours of 

 travel, they derive no benefit from the food or the 

 repose, and the length of your stay in this horrible 

 plain becomes perilously long. This is the part of 

 the road from the south to ]\Iashonaland which is 

 in my opinion absolutely fatal to the route as a 

 route for commerce or for supplies to any consider- 

 able population. The vast tract of country between 

 Fort Victoria and Fort Charter is unsuitable and 

 grievous either for man or for domestic beast. 

 Any profitable cultivation of this sandy soil is 

 impossible. In a few spots here and there the 

 natives raise ]:)oor crops of mealies. The climate is 

 capricious and variable. One day the heat is so 

 great that it is difficult to support a flannel shirt ; 

 the next day a cold wind, driving rain, or thick 

 fog causes you to shiver in a great-coat and muffler. 

 This cold wind and rain is to be expected at this 

 time of the year at least twice in the course of a 

 moon, producing the worst effects on the spans of 

 oxen. 



AVhere, then, I commenced to ask myself, is the 

 inuch-talked-of fine country of the Mashona V 

 Where is the " promised land " so desperately 

 coveted by the Boers ? On the low veldt, where 

 the soil is of extraordinary fertility, fever and 

 horse sickness afflict human beings and exterminate 

 stock ; on the high veldt, whore neither of these 

 evils extensively prevails, the soil is l^arren and 

 worthless. I am told that in the neighbourhood, 

 and in the north and north-Avest of Fort Salisbury, 



