CAMP ON THE SEMOKWE. 143 
about three weeks' hunting in the veldt. I am spin- 
ning out the time, so that if I find all things favour- 
able on reaching Mungwato, I can start in April or 
May for the Zambesi. ... I have seen Vincent, 
the driver, who is death on Solomon.^ He said he 
wanted to kill him, but did not like to do it without 
your leave, which he asked, but you said it would be 
rather inconvenient to you just then to have him 
put out of the way." 
On the 24th, as already stated, the hunters left 
the Tati, and crossing the Ramaqueban and Inkwesi 
Rivers, struck thence eastwards, and crossed the 
Sakasusi or Dry River on the 26th, a crowd of Bush- 
men, with their wives and children, accompanying 
the waggons. The following day they reached the 
Semokwe, a fine river surrounded by a sea of green 
bush stretching in all directions, and here they formed 
their camp.^ "In the evening," writes Frank Oates 
in his Journal after their arrival at this point, 
"a boy, who comes from the Zambesi, and knows 
the Falls, which he calls ' Metse-a-tunya ' (water- 
sounding), came and sang, playing on the string 
of a bow to which a gourd was attached. He sang 
the ' Song of the Elephants Feeding,' now and 
^ The latter was W. Oates's Kafir driver, who, it may be remem- 
bered, had turned out a consummate rascal. 
"- In the coloured illustration opposite, taken on this river by W. 
Oates, when there the previous year, the dry sandy bed of the Semokwe 
is distinguished towards the horizon, with tall rushes upon its bank. 
The large trees, still in leaf, to the left hand of the picture, are 
mimosas, near one of which, still further to the left, is seen a large 
ant-hill, used as an oven, in the manner described above {vide p. 135). 
