12 MATABELE LAND. 
Four days later W. E. Oates writes, also from 
Pretoria, " We have now been here a week, and are 
going to start off again to-day for Bamangwato. 
Buckley and his friend Gilchrist came up on Satur- 
day, and we have decided to keep together. Gray, 
the trader we talked about, left here for Bamangwato 
about a fortnight since. ... I fear we are now too 
late to get to the Victoria Falls, as the country is not 
healthy after September. We have been rather mxore 
than six weeks in getting from Maritzburg here, 
and a more wretched country can hardly be con- 
ceived — not a tree to be seen, and half the country 
burnt black, as, if the grass is set on fire, it burns for 
weeks. The days are intensely hot (not a drop of 
rain since we left Maritzburg) ; the nights very cold, 
with sharp frosts. Countless herds of antelopes are 
to be seen every day; wildebeest (gnu), blesbok, 
springbok, and many others called by Dutch names. 
There are also hyaenas, jackals, crows, and vultures. 
" The Dutch Boers have farms at intervals. 
They seem miserably poor ; no milk, eggs, meat. I 
don't know how they live. It is much warmer here, 
and after to-morrow we get into what is called the 
bush veldt, where there are lots of trees, and then it 
begins to get hot. The country we have passed 
over is from 4000 to 6000 feet above the level of 
the sea, and on the high veldt there is scarcely any 
water ; the road in many places very bad and strewn 
with the bones and skeletons of oxen, wildebeest, 
and other animals, which have been picked clean by 
the vultures. How people can pass their lives in 
