COMMENCEMENT OF THE RAINS. 71 
very obliging to me. This is a mission station, but 
there is no missionary here now. It is the last post 
of white men in this part of the world. When you 
reach the Zambesi you come to the outposts of the 
Portuguese traders from the east coast, but between 
these points are no Europeans settled. The rain is 
begfinninof, thous^h the reo^ular rains have not set in 
yet. It is after the first heavy rains that fever begins 
to annoy people on the Zambesi, but I believe, gene- 
rally, even then only slightly, but after the next 
downfall — when there is much rain and the rain is 
beginning to dry up, about January, February, and 
March — the really bad season sets in. However, 
I am now avoiding even the former risk, and 
where I am going I shall be so near here all the 
time that I can return almost when I choose. I 
don't exactly know where I am going, but it will be 
somewhere in a north or north-easterly direction 
from here. 
" I hear that Cruickshank, my agent at Bamang- 
wato, is now at the King's Town, but I am three days' 
journey from there, and he will shortly be returning 
to Bamangwato. Fairbairn, his agent at the King's 
Town, will, however, in all probability, be there when 
I return, and here I am in good hands too, so that I 
have friends all along the road, and letters always 
come and go as surely, if more slowly, than where 
there is a regular post, for waggons are constantly 
coming and going, and everybody helps everybody 
else in this part of the world. I have been pressed 
into the service as postman myself before now. Only 
