178 MATABELE LAND. 



rested — the Tati now well behind him, and his 

 imagination full of hope in the future and interest in 

 the present — it is likely enough he may have con- 

 gratulated himself on the successful progress of his 

 journey, but scarcely probable he should have re- 

 flected on the possibility that here, not many hundred 

 yards from this very spot, he might but a few months 

 hence, when returning from the Falls, find his last 

 lonely resting-place ; yet so it was. 



After a brief rest he again advanced forward, 

 and the Journal once more continues : — 



"June \Zth. — ,. . . I nspanned again about noon, 

 and crossed another spruit with a sharp turn in it. 

 Soon saw corn-fields, then the bright green of tobacco- 

 fields and a kraal, 1 and outspanned at i p.m. I was 

 pleased with the appearance of this little kraal, sur- 

 rounded by its green fields of tobacco, and emerging 

 suddenly to view from amidst the mopani trees ; but 

 I little thought of the disappointment in store for me 

 here. Though we had trekked so short a time, and 

 made our previous trek so short as to be scarcely 

 worth mentioning, I almost decided to outspan here 

 before I found that it was absolutely necessary I must. 

 The people told us that there was a message from 

 the king, which the induna would convey to me, but 

 he was away at another kraal and must be sent for. 

 Sent a boy with the oxen to water, which is some 



1 This kraal, the first outpost of the Makalakas, is described as 

 Jantje's later in the ensuing pages, and is so marked upon the map. 

 In the traveller's original Journal the name was for the most part 

 erroneously spelt Watikee, and this spelling was adopted in the first 

 edition of the present work. 



