HER MAJESTY'S MISSION TO MATABELELAND 147 



commence, a sight which far exceeded our expectations in its 

 magnitude and savage picturesqueness. 



The country is divided into four great divisions, all containing 

 a certain number of military kraals ; in each is a regiment which 

 gives its name to the location. The King is absolute head of 

 this military depotism ; the different indunas, who are his 

 lieutenants, are answerable to him to the smallest detail. He 

 is the rainmaker ; witchcraft and its agents rule the country and 

 are almost entirely answerable for the dreadful horrors which are 

 perpetrated every year, wholesale slaughter of entire kraals and 

 horrid murders of individuals and their families. Talk to people 

 who had lived for many years in the country, read the books and 

 writings of men who from personal knowledge of actual facts can 

 be believed, and no one will doubt that these bloody massacres 

 are of very frequent occurrence. The Mashonas, industrious 

 agriculturists and workers in iron, have almost been extermi- 

 nated by the many Matabele raids, as also is the case with the 

 original inhabitants of the southern part of the country the 

 Makalakas. Few remain ; those who do are hidden away in 

 rocky hills. It is quite time, from a humanitarian point of view, 

 that this cruel military despotism inflamed by witchcraft was 

 broken. Such destruction would be an unmixed blessing to 

 thousands of aborigines of the soil usurped and ravaged by 

 Lobengula's father and by himself. The British South Africa 

 Company, under its Royal charter, has now taken over the con- 

 cessions granted by Lobengula to individuals, and is about to 

 make a road into Mashonaland to work the gold which is known 

 to exist there in the greatest abundance. The King has given 

 his permission, and it is to be hoped that the somewhat unruly 

 young soldier party will not put obstacles in the way. Mashona- 

 land lies 5,000 feet above the sea ; its climate is very well suited 

 to Europeans, it is abundantly supplied with running water, and 

 is very fertile, growing rice, corn, and plenty of timber, while 

 cattle thrive everywhere. All authorities, such as Baines, 

 Selous, Taylor, Mandy, &c., are agreed about the healthiness, 

 the richness in gold and iron of the country now devastated by 

 Lobengula's brutal soldiery. Matabeleland itself is traversed 

 by reefs of gold-bearing quartz, but no one has dared to break 

 the King's law by meddling with it. The crops of mealies and 

 Kaffir corn looked magnificent as we passed through, and large 



