226 MATABELE LAND. 



young ones. I have now a good span of fourteen 

 and a couple of supernumeraries, and have likewise 

 bought a heifer, to give me milk. She is of the 

 peculiar small breed, less than Alderneys, bred 

 by the Mashonas. My dogs are invaluable to 

 me ; ' Rail ' and ' Rock ' require the greatest care, 

 and get it. 



" I shall wonder how you get on amongst the 

 Spitzbergen game ; if as successful as you must 

 have been here, you can claim to count amongst the 

 Nimrods. I don't know what to say to your letter 

 of June 2d. Of course, if you should come out as 

 you propose, it will be very pleasant to meet, and we 

 might spend a month or two together in the Zulu 

 Country before I leave Africa, or, returning via Zan- 

 zibar, spend a month or two there, as you suggest. 

 I should not care to be very much longer than this, 

 and if, after all, you should not come now, we must 

 do something else again together in the course of 

 time." 



The whole of these letters, above quoted from, 

 were despatched to England about the end of Oc- 

 tober. To one of them a postscript was added on 

 the 28th, to the effect that the trader, Stoffel, whose 

 finger, it appears, had been amputated on his return 

 from the veldt, had just arrived at Tati, and that he 

 and Dorehill, the young trader of that name already 

 mentioned in these pages, were intending to start 

 immediately with two waggons for the Zambesi, and 

 wanted Frank Oates to accompany them. " I hardly 

 think, however, that I shall do so," he writes, "as 



