AN ANCIENT BURIAL GROUND 151 



old headman named M'passo, that when he was 

 a boy it was the custom, on an alarm being given 

 of the approach of the Vatuas, for all the people 

 to take refuge on the former, where they would 

 often remain for weeks at a time as a result of these 

 visitations. There is on this plateau, as on several 

 others, an ancient burial ground, and perhaps on 

 this account, since the discontinuance of Vatua 

 alarms, nobody has ascended the mountain unless 

 some of his or her ancestors or influential con- 

 nections were buried there, and then only on such 

 an occasion as that of marriage or some other of 

 vital import, when, accompanied by an old man 

 who M'passo did not wish to name to me, but I 

 suspect to have been some villainous witch-doctor, 

 and who is the only remaining individual to show 

 the way up, the two would ascend for the purpose 

 of propitiating the spirits of the dead, and with 

 a view to obtaining a favourable augury of the 

 success or otherwise of the forthcoming event. 



There is scarcely any open grass-land in the 

 almost unbroken forest, which one would suppose 

 would attract a greater rainfall than apparently this 

 district receives. In the south-eastern portions, 

 one crosses here and there inconsiderable " Tandues," 

 or expanses of coarse grass-land, covered with that 

 useless growth the Stipa, which reaches a height of 

 nine or ten feet, and showers barbed seeds upon 

 you when its seed-vessels ripen. 



There are in the Baru^ two military posts, 

 both established since the 1902 campaign ; that of 

 Mungari already referred to, and that of Katandikas 

 near the Rhodesian frontier which I have not 



