LETTER HOME. 63 
" I cannot give you a detailed account of my stay 
of nine days at the King's Town. It is really to a 
stranger a most curious place. The king, Loben- 
gula, lives in royal state. He is absolute mon- 
arch, and feared and obeyed far and wide. The 
people inhabiting the country we have passed 
through in coming here are altogether of an inferior 
race. At Bamangwato there is a king, but he is 
thought nothing of. I called on 'Bengula, accom- 
panied by Fairbairn, the day I arrived here, and 
found him the picture of a savage king, just as one 
might have imagined, and coming quite up to the 
standard. The day I first saw him he was nearly 
naked, and lying on a skin inside his hut, to enter 
which you have to crawl in on your hands and knees 
through a little aperture in the front ; in fact it is 
like a beehive entrance. He took me by the hand, 
and placed meat before me, and asked a few 
questions about my journey. I told him I should 
come again next day. Of course I had to make 
him a present, and I knew he would expect it next 
day, after which I should ask his leave and assistance 
to go through his country to the Victoria Falls if 
possible. I gave him a gun and ammunition, which 
pleased him very much, and he has done everything 
he could for me. It appeared that I was still in 
time to reach the Falls by going on foot, after 
leaving my waggon at the place marked on the 
map as Inyati. The king said it was possible to 
get to the Falls in ten days, and I suppose at my 
rate of travelling it ought to bc' done in a fortnight or 
