54 MATABELE LAND. 
numbers of little burns here with moist oozy banks, 
and in many places with water in them, that I sup- 
pose find their way to the Shashani. We had to 
go through a burning patch of country. The flames 
appeared orange-red, and presented a rather formid- 
able phalanx, writhing in the wind, and with wreaths 
of dun-coloured smoke rising from them, which 
indeed filled the air with lighter clouds of the same 
colour, here and there the wreaths appearing bluish, 
whilst a dusky haze hung over the horizon. As 
the flames devoured the yellow grass, they left a 
blackened track behind. The trees, however, seem 
to escape ; some in blossom, some in autumnal tints, 
but the greater portion leafless. . . . One of the 
boys who came to the waggon had a charm of bone 
suspended from his breast. It consisted of four 
pieces of bone, carved and strung together. By 
them he professes to foretell what luck will befall a 
hunter or any one else. They are unstrung and 
shaken in the hand, and then thrown on the ground. 
The person going to hunt must spit on the ground, 
and as he throws he must say, * My gun ! may I shoot 
something.' The bones, as they are hung, appear 
about the size and shape of a swallow-tail- butter- 
fly. I like the Matabele better than I did. They 
are good-natured and jovial, and seem to understand 
a joke. There were great firings and noises at the 
kraal in the evening, in honour, it appears, of a man 
returned from the diamond-fields. 
''September nth. — Fair, pleasant, windy day. 
Eight oxen and a note from Fairbairn, who says I 
