134 MATABELE LAND. 
waterbuck, and sable antelope were met with, 
besides wild pig, quagga, and sassaybi. The spoor 
of elephant and rhinoceros was also seen, none of it, 
however, very recent. 
The Ramaqueban — at this season a fine broad 
stream, with long grass and a large undergrowth of 
rank weeds upftn its banks — was crossed in many of 
their rambles, and near it on one occasion were 
seen the graves of two Englishmen. " Started at 
nine," writes Frank Oates on February i6th, "crossed 
the Ramaqueban, and passed the graves of two 
Englishmen, who died here, one of fever, one killed 
by an elephant. The latter had come from England 
to shoot, and was killed by the tusks of the first 
elephant he saw. The fever is very bad on this 
river ; the vegetation is extremely rank, and the 
water lies very deep over much of the veldt. The 
graves," he concludes, " had been surrounded by 
stakes to keep off the wolves, but the river, over- 
flowing its banks, had nearly washed them away ; 
still the heaps of stones covering the bodies and a 
few stakes remain." 
The same evening, wandering far into the bush, 
Frank Oates slept out with some of his boys who 
had accompanied him. "We stopped at 5 p.m.," 
he says, "and huts were made. It was a hot night, 
and the big fires made it worse. The white ants 
too kept tumbling over me all night, and knocking 
down leaves from the roof^ We were perhaps 
sixteen miles from the waggon." 
^ " These 'white ants' (Termites)," writes W. Oates, "are the curse of 
