EXCESSIVE DROUGHT. 219 
"Tati, October i6lh, 1874. 
" The mail is in, and with it a letter from you, 
appreciated as usual, which I need not say is not a 
little. It is dated July 3d. I am sorry you seem 
to doubt my getting your letters. In my letter to 
the Mater I mention the hoard of letters, containing 
a complete and connected history of home affairs, 
which met my delighted eyes when I returned here 
from my third attempt to reach the Zambesi, of which 
I have given her an account. The road between 
here and Bamangwato is all but closed from the 
drought now, as it is the end of the dry season. 
The waggons that brought this mail in were delayed, 
and suffered considerably. Several of the oxen died, 
and one waggon is still in the veldt at the Gokwe 
River, where there is a little water, and which is the 
half-way house between Mungwato and here. In 
distance it is more than half way, but it is always a 
stopping-place, on either side of which stretches a 
parched-up country. On the first day of this month I 
began a letter to the Mater, expecting it would be taken 
on in a day or two. However, the waggons that were 
to take it did not set off, preferring to wait for rain, 
so the letter has been lying unfinished. Now, how- 
ever, another arrives from you, and sets me ofT into the 
writing vein. Moreover, I am expecting very shortly 
to start into the veldt for a month or two, which 
means two months, of course, before I fairly set off 
home. I have in the meantime been collecting birds 
here, and reflecting on the vanity of human am- 
