176 
MATABELE LAND. 
NATIVE BUILDING, SHASHE RIVER. 
" The river, which we outspanned at, and which 
(as before stated) contains plenty of water, flows 
away towards the south-west, as shown by the bent 
reeds in its now dry sandy bed.^ 
" Started again at 1.20 p.m. and went about eight 
miles ; first through ' mopani veldt,' with fine fruit- 
1 This river, represented in most of the recent maps as taking its 
rise but a few miles from here, and flowing away directly to the west- 
ward towards the salt lakes, is in reality — so the traveller afterwards 
learnt from at least three distinct witnesses — a part of the Shashe 
River, the same river which is crossed on the Bamangwato and Tati 
road, a few miles before reaching Tati, coming north. One of these 
witnesses, Mr. Dobie of the mine, had, moreover, struck the river, 
he said, about thirty miles northward of the drift on which the 
waggons were now outspanned, and had found it a big river even 
there, where, according to the maps, it is not even in existence. The 
slate formation in which the gold is found runs, it seems, to a 
narrow point as far as this river-drift, and there ceases altogether. 
