266 MATABELE LAND. 



deep repose of this silent spot, the traveller's remains 

 were laid in their last resting-place. His was a 

 burial which well became in its simplicity a true 

 lover, like himself, of Nature and her wilds. 



This ended, it now devolved on Dr. Bradshaw 

 to convey the waggon and effects of the deceased to 

 Bamangwato, where he left them in charge of the 

 Rev. John Mackenzie, himself returning soon after- 

 wards to the Zambesi district. His attentions to the 

 deceased during the last days of his illness must 

 have materially added to the latter's comfort, and 

 Frank Oates's friends have reason to be thankful 

 that he chanced thus accidentally to have been 

 thrown into the company of a fellow-countryman at 

 the close of his two years' wanderings. His inter- 

 esting collections, moreover, of natural history, a 

 part of which he now had with him, might readily 

 have been dispersed, and his goods plundered, had 

 his death occurred amongst unfriendly natives, with 

 no one at hand to be responsible for their custody ; 

 whilst as it was, all these, with his waggon and 

 outfit and personal effects, were faithfully delivered 

 by Dr. Bradshaw into the charge of Mr. Mackenzie 

 at Bamangwato, there to await instructions from 

 his relatives in England. 1 



1 A few years later (in 1880) Dr. Bradshaw came down from the 

 interior to the Cape, with considerable collections of birds and insects 

 formed during his travels, some of the former of which reached the 

 British Museum, and are alluded to by Mr. Sharpe in the Appendix 

 to this volume. Subsequently Dr. Bradshaw visited England for the 

 benefit of his health, returning however in a few months to South 

 Africa, where, after a lingering illness, he died on December 1st, 1883, 

 whilst acting as surgeon to the Northern Border Police. 



