148 MATABELE LAND 
Pietermaritzburg nearly twelve months before — and, 
all seeming favourable, at once determined on prose- 
cuting his journey to the Zambesi. There appeared 
now every reason to anticipate a prosperous and 
successful expedition, and he began at once to make 
his preparations for it, laying in fresh supplies at 
the stores, and otherwise completing his equipment. 
Very little worthy of note occurred during the 
time he was detained at Bamangwato. One evening, 
however, a great noise and shouting at the kraal, 
kept up till late, announced the return from the veldt 
of a number of boys who had been out for circum- 
cision. The following day, according to custom, 
the same boys went forth again, and Frank Oates 
saw them starting. *' Party, say of two hundred 
boys, went out," he writes, " into the veldt. They 
are those who returned yesterday from circum- 
cision, and I am told will have to go to the veldt 
every day for a week and look after the king's 
cattle. They presented a striking and uniform 
appearance. Each had a knob-kerry and a wand, 
and round the middle a bit of skin. All these and 
their entire bodies were rubbed with red ochre, their 
heads shaved except the crown, on which the hair 
was quite short, crisp, and bead-like. All the crown 
and the part around it was brilliantly metallic, of a 
dark steel blue, produced by some preparation of a 
kind of lead got here." 
The evening after this occurrence (April 24th), the 
traveller's preparations were completed, and a fresh 
start made up country, but before proceeding further 
