220 MATABELE LAND. 
bition. It may surprise you that I don't hurry 
home, now that the Zambesi affair is over. It is 
certainly not that I don't long to see all the familiar 
faces once more, and feast my eyes with English 
scenery.^ . . . 
" The weather is now fairly broken, and it has 
begun to rain again this evening, with gusts of wind, 
which flutter my papers from time to time. It has 
been dreadfully hot the last few days. After the 
heavy rain at the beginning of the month we have 
been having a spell of really warm weather, the 
thermometer often reaching several degrees above 
lOO in the shade. I have been busy having my 
waggon patched up and made weather-tight. It was 
finished to-day, and to-day the old Boer returned to 
his happy home and found me in possession. I said 
I would pack up at once, to enable him to establish 
himself in his house this evening, but I found I could 
not be ready, so he and his family are encamped out- 
side, inhabiting their waggons. However, I held out 
hopes to him of vacating the place to-morrow, which 
seemed to satisfy him. In fact the Boers are just 
^ The woodcut opposite illustrates two of the whydah-finches, 
which the traveller collected during his present stay at Tati. The 
general colour of the upper bird is black, with a collar of ruddy brown, 
fading into buff beneath ; that of the lower one black and pale 
yellow, the bill and legs coral-red. In the winter season these birds 
lose their long tail feathers, and their plumage becomes a mottled 
brown ; a great contrast to their striking summer dress. There are 
many varieties of these finches, one species of which {Chera progne), 
a native of the Transvaal, suffers serious inconvenience from these 
adornments in a high wind. The long tail feathers are much used 
by the natives for ornaments and head-dresses. 
