APPEAL TO THE KING. 207 
"After last writing to you, I left here on the 
25th of July in company with the trader I told you 
of. Some delay ensued when we were one day from 
here, occasioned by reports of the road being stopped 
by the king. I had with me the man given me by 
his Majesty to see me safely through the Makalakas 
on my way to the Zambesi, and a precious rascal he 
was. Some people came up to the waggons with 
great demonstrations, one of them rushing about 
and flourishing a battle-axe. I adopted my usual 
course, in such cases, of lighting a pipe and sitting on 
the front-box of my waggon, watching the perform- 
ance, varying my tactics by turning my back on 
him. He professed to have authority from the king 
to stop all waggons going to the Zambesi, and 
lugged in poor old Mosilikatze's name, as is usual in 
grand orations, and made my boys shake in their 
shoes, metaphorically speaking, by informing them 
that the order was that any of the king's subjects 
accompanying white men to the Zambesi were to be 
killed. 
" The son of Manyami, the man given me ex- 
pressly to shut up this sort of bounce, suggested 
that this might be some new order from the king. 
I therefore lost no time in sending him off with a 
letter to headquarters, requesting full instructions, 
as Manyami's son had not seen the king at all about 
the affair, but I had simply taken him, as the king 
told me, from his father's kraal on my way from 
Gubuleweyo to Tati. Old Manyami is the man who 
used to stop all waggons coming into the country 
