54 MATABELE LAND. 



with decay. In places where the grass has been 

 burnt, fresh green blades are springing. There are 

 numbers of little burns here with moist oozy banks, 

 and in many places with water in them, that I sup- 

 pose find their way to the Shashani. We had to 

 go through a burning patch of country. The flames 

 appeared orange-red, and presented a rather formid- 

 able phalanx, writhing in the wind, and with wreaths 

 of dun -coloured smoke rising from them, which 

 indeed filled the air with lighter clouds of the same 

 colour, here and there the wreaths appearing bluish, 

 whilst a dusky haze hung over the horizon. As 

 the flames devoured the yellow grass, they left a 

 blackened track behind. The trees, however, seem 

 to escape ; some in blossom, some in autumnal tints, 

 but the greater portion leafless. . . . One of the 

 boys who came to the waggon had a charm of bone 

 suspended from his breast. It consisted of four 

 pieces of bone, carved and strung together. By 

 them he professes to foretell what luck will befall 

 a hunter or any one else. They are unstrung and 

 shaken in the hand and then thrown on the ground. 

 The person going to hunt must spit on the ground, 

 and as he throws he must say, 'My gun! may I shoot 

 something.' The bones, as they are hung, appear 

 about the size and shape of a Swallow-tail Butter- 

 fly. I like the Matabele better than I did; they 

 are good-natured and jovial, and seem to understand 

 a joke. There were great firings and noises at the 

 kraal in the evening, in honour, it appears, of a man 

 returned from the diamond-fields. 



