152 MATABELE LAND. 



here two English tourists, one of them called Bond, 

 have just left here, trekking slowly to the Falls. 

 This year and last the Falls have been in great 

 request apparently, as Garland and Dawnay visited 

 them last year, and now the Gardens, Bond, and 

 myself are all bound there, this. Selous too is very 

 anxious to see them and will probably manage it. 

 We are still in lots of time, in fact the great fear now 

 is of going there too soon, but I shall go slowly and 

 remain where it is healthy till it is the same at the 

 Zambesi. 



" The boys, as one's Kaffir satellites are called, 

 whatever their age, are far more liable to fever of 

 course than their 'bosses.' Lying out naked, or 

 with only a skin or blanket and a fire, to keep the 

 cold away at the unhealthy season, is not likely to 

 prevent an attack of fever. Three or four of my 

 boys have had it. I have given them quinine, and 

 there is only one of them ill now. This is a little 

 fellow I call ' Ouilp.' He is perhaps eighteen and 

 a perfect dwarf. The race he belongs to, the Bush- 

 men of this country, are usually tall. These Bush- 

 men are a curious race, who probably had their 

 homes in the veldt long before the Mungwato and 

 Matabele people came here and conquered it, and 

 before the races they conquered came. The Mung- 

 wato people are an utterly different nation from the 

 Matabele. The latter have two other nations, the 

 Makalaka and Mashona, living in bondage under 

 them, who are far more ingenious and versed in the 

 arts than their conquerors, having mined and worked 



