220 MATABELE LAND. 



all the familiar faces once more, and feast my eyes 

 with English scenery. 1 . . . 



" The weather is now fairly broken, and it has 

 begun to rain again this evening, with gusts of wind, 

 which flutter my papers from time to time. It has 

 been dreadfully hot the last few days. After the 

 heavy rain at the beginning of the month we have 

 been having a spell of really warm weather, the 

 thermometer often reaching several degrees above 

 ioo in the shade. I have been busy having my 

 waggon patched up and made weather-tight. It was 

 finished to-day, and to-day the old Boer returned to 

 his happy home and found me in possession. I said 

 I would pack up at once, to enable him to establish 

 himself in his house this evening, but I found I could 

 not be ready, so he and his family are encamped out- 

 side, inhabiting their waggons. However, I held out 

 hopes to him of vacating the place to-morrow, which 

 seemed to satisfy him. In fact the Boers are just 



1 The woodcut opposite illustrates two of the Widow-birds, which 

 the traveller collected during his present stay at Tati. The general 

 colour of the upper bird is black, with a collar of ruddy brown, fading 

 into buff beneath ; that of the lower one black and pale yellow, the 

 bill and legs coral-red. In the winter season these birds lose their 

 long tail feathers, and their plumage becomes a mottled brown ; a great 

 contrast to their striking summer dress. There are many varieties of 

 these finches, one species of which {Chera progne), a native of the 

 Transvaal, suffers serious inconvenience from these adornments in a 

 high wind. The long tail-feathers are much used by the natives for 

 ornaments and head-dresses. The original name of these birds — 

 Whydah-finch — was derived from the country where they were first 

 found, and has been corrupted into its present inappropriate and 

 meaningless form, apparently through some misapprehension or acci- 

 dent. 



