CHAPTER IV. 



Arrival at Gubuluwayo — Interview with the king — Start for the Zam- 

 besi — Hope Fountain — Inyati — Difficulty of obtaining bearers — 

 The Zambesi abandoned — Hunting expedition on the Umvungu 

 and Gwailo Rivers — Experiences of a half-caste — Birds' nests — 

 The indunas' tree — Hunting — A lunar eclipse — Return to Gubulu- 

 wayo — Wild fruit. 



The account of Frank Oates's present stay at 

 Gubuluwayo, and his first impressions of the town 

 and its inhabitants, taken from his Journal, is some- 

 what scanty. This was one of those more striking 

 episodes in the journey, which needed no written 

 record to impress their details upon his mind, and 

 the narrative of which in this, as in other similar in- 

 stances, is consequently the most wanting, where the 

 reader would naturally expect and desire to find 

 it the fullest. The account, such as it is, of his 

 arrival at the town and the first two days spent 

 there, is taken as follows from his Journal : — 



"September i$th. — Another trek of about an 

 hour and a half brought us, about 9 a.m., to Gubulu- 

 wayo. There is not much timber as the kraal is 

 approached. The scene is picturesque but desolate, 

 the road winding and steep. Some of the peculiar- 

 looking trees l are here of great size. Strings of 



1 Probably the Euphor'bia above referred to (see p. 46). 



