34 MATABELE LAND. 
every tree here are a great impediment in travelling 
through the bush. 
" The nights are now cool, though not so sharp 
as they were a while ago. The thermometer seldom 
falls much below 50°, It is coolest just before sun- 
rise. At midday and in the afternoon it gets con- 
siderably above 80° in the shade, in fact I should set 
the point reached at nearer 90°. As I sit writing in 
my tent, I hear the engine working — an odd sound 
up in these remote regions." 
Three days later, September 2d, W. E. Oates 
supplements this letter : — 
" I am just adding a line to the above, to leave 
It before I go. Frank left the day before yester- 
day, to go to the King's Town. The king (Loben- 
gula) is the great nigger chief here, and behaves 
very well to all white men. I am staying with Buck- 
ley and Gilchrist, and we are now going to the 
Shashani River, about five days' journey. I think 
Frank will be all right. He has a Cape Colony 
black man with him, who knows this country well, 
and speaks excellent English.^ He was up here 
with Sir John Swinburne, who OM^ns the gold-mine, 
so I am not afraid for Frank if he takes care of 
himself . . . 
" The country here is regularly burnt up now, and 
will continue so till the rains fall in November. The 
river is nothing but a dry bed of sand, with a little 
pool of water in it about three miles off — the only 
^ This refers to Hendrik, the man of that name above alluded to. 
