2q8 Men, Mtnes, and Animals in South Africa. 



Though valueless, I cannot refrain fr^om an expres- 

 sion of my earnest wishes for the prosperity of the 

 place and of the country of which it is the centre, 

 and while I cannot expect, I rashly allow myself 

 to hope, that hj these Avi'itings I may rouse 

 in the minds of people at home some amount of 

 active and abiding sympathy for the fortunes of 

 this infant British settlement. My party on leav- 

 ing was a small one compared witli that ^vith which 

 I arrived. Mr. Henry C. Perkins and Surgeon 

 Raynor had preceded me by some days on the road 

 south, travelling in the "spider" with a team of eight 

 horses. In the company of Major Giles and of Mr. 

 Borrow, I travelled in a large covered vnn or coacli 

 on springs, which had been expressly constructed 

 by tliat firm for passenger traffic along the Pungwe 

 route to Massikessi. This coach, by extraordinar}' 

 efforts and at a great sacrifice of mules and oxen, 

 liad l:)een brought along the route from Beira to 

 Fort Salisbury ; but the experiment had convinced 

 Messrs. Johnson and Co. that passenger traffic 

 along the Pungwe river can only be carried on 

 with the aid of steam, and that the tsetse fly and the 

 many poisonous grasses and herbs which infest the 

 low country are rapidly fatal to oxen, mules, and 

 horses. Consequently they were glad to sell this 

 coach, Avhich just suited me for my long trek of 

 nine hundred miles down through Mashonaland 

 and Bechuanaland. We found that, in this vehicle 

 drawn by twelve mules, we could cover a distance 

 of thirty miles a day, without at all overtasking 

 the strength of the team. The coach held eight 



