12 MATABELE LAND. 



going to start off again to-day for Bamangwato. 

 Buckley and his friend Gilchrist came up on Satur- 

 day, and we have decided to keep together. Gray, 

 the trader we talked about, left here for Bamangwato 

 about a fortnight since. ... I fear we are now too 

 late to get to the Victoria Falls, as the country is not 

 healthy after September. We have been rather more 

 than six weeks in getting from Maritzburg here, 

 and a more wretched country can hardly be con- 

 ceived — not a tree to be seen, and half the country 

 burnt black, as, if the grass is set on fire, it burns for 

 weeks. The days are intensely hot (not a drop of 

 rain since we left Maritzburg) ; the nights very cold, 

 with sharp frosts. Countless herds of antelopes 

 are to be seen every day ; wildebeest (gnu), bles- 

 bok, springbok, and many others called by Dutch 

 names. There are also hyaenas, jackals, crows, and 

 vultures. 



" The Dutch Boers have farms at intervals. 

 They seem miserably poor ; no milk, eggs, meat. I 

 don't know how they live. It is much warmer here, 

 and after to-morrow we get into what is called the 

 bush veldt, where there are lots of trees, and then it 

 begins to get hot. The country we have passed 

 over is from 4000 to 6000 feet above the level of 

 the sea, and on the high veldt there is scarcely any 

 water ; the road in many places very bad and strewn 

 with the bones and skeletons of oxen, wildebeest, 

 and other animals, which have been picked clean by 

 the vultures. How people can pass their lives in 

 such dreary solitudes it is difficult to conceive. . . . 



