4 o MATABELE LAND. 



" A ' salted,' or seasoned, horse is worth a great 

 deal, as there is a sickness in the bush which is 

 generally fatal to horses which are not 'salted.' It 

 commences when the rains begin to fall. I much 

 regretted losing my little horse. I was told, when 

 I got him, he was salted, but he died after a few 

 hours' illness. There is no cure known for it. He 

 was looking beautiful ; his coat shone like satin, and 

 he was getting quite fat with the young grass and 

 some corn which I got for him at Mungwato. The 

 oxen are thriving tremendously, and, since the grass 

 has grown, from wretched skeletons they have be- 

 come regular Tichbornes. 



" I shall write to you again from Maritzburg, if 

 there is a ship sailing before I go, for I expect I 

 shall have to stay a fortnight or three weeks there, 

 to sell the waggon, oxen, etc. ... I mean to trek 

 to-night when the moon gets up. We get into 

 the high veldt now, where there is no bush. My 

 waggon looks very seedy, the cover torn in many 

 places by acacia -bushes and the paint worn off. 

 It is infested with beetles, and occasionally a lizard 

 or scorpion is detected. Ants, too, occasionally 

 pay me visits, to which I greatly object, as they 

 bite uncommonly hard in this country. At night, if 

 you are outspanned near water and have a lanthorn 

 in the waggon, the candle is put out by numberless 

 little beetles which creep in ; and the frogs literally 

 yell all night long. It is very pretty to see the fire- 

 flies." 



On January 2d, as already stated, W. E. Oates 



