DISCOVERY FORESTALLED. 319 



ceive the goods sent by Moffat to "Nakc," the Makololo 

 replied, u Go along with you : we know better than that. 

 How could he tell Moffat to send his things here, he having 

 gone away to the north ?" The Matebele answered, "Here 

 are the goods : we place them now before you, and if you 

 leave them to perish the guilt will be yours." When they 

 had departed, the Makololo thought better of it, and, after 

 much divination, went over with fear and trembling, and 

 carried the packages carefully to an island in the middle of 

 the stream; then, building a hut over them to protect 

 them from the weather, they left them ; and there I found 

 they had remained from September, 1854, till September, 

 1855, in perfect safety. Here, as I had often experienced 

 before, I found the news was very old, and had lost much 

 of its interest by keeping; but there were some good eat- 

 ables from Mrs. Moffat. Among other things, I discovered 

 that my friend Sir Roderick Murchison, while in his study 

 in London, had arrived at the same conclusion respecting 

 the form of the African continent as I had lately come to 

 on the spot ; and that from the attentive study of the geo- 

 logical map of Mr. Bain and other materials, some of which 

 were furnished by the discoveries of Mr. Oswell and my- 

 self, he had not only clearly enunciated the peculiar configu- 

 ration as a hypothesis in his discourse before the Geogra- 

 phical Society in 1852, but had even the assurance to send 

 me out a copy for my information ! There was not much 

 use in nursing my chagrin at being thus fairly "cut out" 

 by the man who had foretold the existence of the Austra- 

 lian gold before its discovery; for here it was in black and 

 white. In his easy-chair he had forestalled me by threo 

 years, though I had been working hard through jungle, 

 marsh, and fever, and, since the light dawned on my mind 

 at Dilolc, had been cherishing the pleasing delusion that I 

 should be the first to suggest the idea that the interior of 

 Africa was a watery plateau of less elevation than flanking 

 hilly ranges. 

 Having waited a few days at Sesheke till the horses 



