DISCOVEKY FORESTALLED. 539 



come over in canoes and receive the goods sent by Moffat to 

 "Nake," the Makololo replied, "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 an- 

 swered, " 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 Sep- 

 tember, 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 eatables 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 respect- 

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

 the spot (see note p. 512) ; and that, from the attentive study of 

 the geological 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 configura- 

 tion as an hypothesis in his discourse before the Geographical 

 Society in 1852, but had even the assurance to send me out 

 a copy for my information ! There was not much use in nurs- 

 ing my chagrin at being thus fairly "cut out" by the man who 

 had foretold the existence of the Australian gold before its dis- 

 covery, for here it was in black and white. In his easy-chair he 

 had forestalled me by three years, though I had been working- 

 hard through jungle, marsh, and fever, and, since the light dawn- 

 ed on my mind at Dilolo, had been cherishing the pleasing delu- 

 sion that I should be the first to suggest the idea that the inte- 

 rior of Africa was a watery plateau of less elevation than flanking 

 hilly ranges. 



Having waited a few days at Sesheke till the horses which we 

 had left at Linyanti should arrive, we proceeded to that town, 

 and found the wagon, and every thing we had left in November, 

 1853, perfectly safe. A grand meeting of all the people was 

 called to receive our report, and the articles which had been sent 



