2 46 MATABELE LAND. 
way from the Zambesi. One has been ill and the 
doctor prohibited him plum-pudding, so there were 
four of us in all. We ate nothing but pudding on 
Christmas Day and the day following, with scarcely 
an exception. The men had another pudding. My 
man turns out to have been originally a cook, and 
when he likes can cook well. The doctor was found 
to be five pounds heavier after dinner than before it 
on Christmas Day. He strongly urged upon all of 
us the desirability of moderation, but no one seemed 
to pay much attention to him, and he certainly did 
not practise what he preached. He has been to the 
Falls before, and in the rainy season too, so he knows 
what he is undertaking in going with me. I expect 
he will make very slow marches, but so much the 
better. I am going to take with me the identical 
tent I had with me in America, and which proved so 
effectual a shelter from the snows of the Rocky 
Mountains. There was a grand idea in the doctor's 
mind of taking a lot of cold plum-pudding with us on 
our walk, but the last morsel disappeared last night. 
However, we shall not be badly off for supplies. 
" From Tamasancha, where I last wrote to you,^ 
and where the traders were waiting till April, I was 
nine days in getting here. The waggon-road all the 
way goes through thick bush and heavy sand. There 
are no rivers, but abundance of pools in the rainy 
season. We have not had very much rain, but of 
course enough to fill the pools, and enough to make 
the road, where it goes through turf, as it does before 
^ This letter was not received in England. 
