APPEAL TO THE KING. 207 



"After last writing to you I left here on the 

 25th of July in company with the trader I told you 

 of. Some delay ensued when we were one day from 

 here, occasioned by reports of the road being stopped 

 by the king. I had with me the man given me by 

 his Majesty to see me safely through the Makalakas 

 on my way to the Zambesi, and a precious rascal he 

 was. Some people came up to the waggons with 

 great demonstrations, one of them rushing about 

 and flourishing a battle-axe. I adopted my usual 

 course, in such cases, of lighting a pipe and sitting on 

 the front-box of my waggon watching the perform- 

 ance, varying my tactics by turning my back on 

 him. He professed to have authority from the king 

 to stop all waggons going to the Zambesi, and 

 lugged in poor old Mosilikatze's name, as is usual in 

 grand orations, and made my boys shake in their 

 shoes, metaphorically speaking, by informing them 

 that the order was that any of the king's subjects 

 accompanying white men to the Zambesi were to be 

 killed. 



" The son of Monyama, the man given me ex- 

 pressly to shut up this sort of bounce, suggested 

 that this might be some new order from the king. 

 I therefore lost no time in sending him off with a 

 letter to headquarters, requesting full instructions, 

 as Monyama's son had not seen the king at all about 

 the affair, but I had simply taken him, as the king 

 told me, from his father's kraal, on my way from 

 Gubuluwayo to Tati. Old Monyama is the man who 

 used to stop all waggons coming into the country 



