246 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
the rolling voice of the “ Bush-baas,” as the Kaffirs 
call the lion, announces that he has left his retreat and 
his time is come. The lions in the neighbourhood 
answer the signal, and, as we have more than once had 
occasion to observe, they assemble and go hunting in 
packs. Some nights the roaring was without inter¬ 
mission, and on others there was absolute silence 
from midnight to 4 a.m. ; but towards morning, as if 
the lions were protesting against the coming of the 
daylight, the fearful noise began worse than ever, now 
rolling away in the distance, now coming disagreeably 
close to the camp. 
On the 20th I left the Gogwe and passed through 
the dry yellow sandy beds of the Katchani and Seribe 
streams, and the larger Schascha, all running from the 
south-west to the north-east, and full of the traces of 
countless troops of wild animals which had been down 
to seek for water. The banks are clothed with dense 
thickets of pale grey jungle edged with tall light 
yellow rushes, the favourite haunt during the day of 
lions and Cape buffaloes. Beyond stretch undulating 
districts, with weird-looking, rugged granite rocks 
rising here and there above the monotonous and 
apparently endless forest of mopane trees, with their 
rigid perpendicular branches and folded leaves, affording 
no more shade than a fishing net spread out in the 
sun. We made our way through these parched and 
dreary districts, and on the morning of the 26th of July 
arrived at the Tati settlement. 
Tati, on the western border of Matabeleland was 
reached on July 26th. As Tati has become of some 
importance in connection with the gold fields, Mohr’s 
description of it at the time it was founded, will be of 
interest:— 
The Tati settlement was founded by Karl Maucli, 
who, with Hartley, an old elephant hunter of seventy- 
two, had discovered traces of gold in' the quartz strata 
in 1868. The news spread like wildfire over the Cape 
Colony, Natal, and even reached Europe ; but the 
miners who had hurried to the place from all parts of 
