ENGLISH HUNTERS ENCOUNTERED. 239 



stomach, holding on to the inside. They seemed to 

 have eaten the lining away, and indeed in places to 

 have eaten through the walls of the stomach itself. 

 This might account for the state of her back, and 

 the fact of her slavering when she ate her corn, but 

 I don't think they can have been the proximate 

 cause of death. . . . Out shooting to-day, but the 

 game here is very wild. 



"November 30M. — Cloudy morning; close, hot 

 afternoon. . . . On returning from the veldt in the 

 evening, found every one who had been left at the 

 waggons nearly drunk ; the Griquas rushing about 

 with loaded guns and fighting. Inspanned to restore 

 order, and went about four miles." 



The following morning, some five miles farther, 

 again brought the party to the Matengwe River. 

 Here the two English hunters, Messrs. Wood and 

 Selous, whom Frank Oates had previously encoun- 

 tered, came up on their way to Tati from the Zambesi, 

 and with them he discussed his future plans. Almost 

 from the first day of his leaving Tati with his present 

 companions he seems, as already intimated, to have 

 entertained the hope that he might even yet make 

 the Zambesi during the present season, without wait- 

 ing for the cessation of the rains. April was the 

 time intended by Stoffel for the continuation of his 

 own journey, and the opinion and experience of the 

 two hunters mentioned above appear to have been 

 so far favourable to Frank Oates's desire to push 

 forward at once, that they regarded — and no doubt 

 rightly — the present season, late as it then was, as 



