352 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
watchers, closing their earthly career, and sending their 
spirits to the crocodile and the hippo. Dogs and all 
were slain. 
The morals of the Matabeli, from a British standpoint 
(which would take a Lord Chancellor to expound, and an 
archbishop, at least, to exemplify), are unquestionably 
in the lower scale. But in this respect they are far 
from being beneath other types of the African races. 
Polygamy is a recognised custom amongst them. 
Wives, in fact, mean wealth : their number is a sign 
of greatness in the husband. I would say that there is 
no immorality, for the knowledge of sensual vice has 
no dwelling in the really savage mind. His natural 
passions are not stimulated by subtle charms. He is 
not a blase creature, but a simple son of nature, free 
and strong in the robustness of his manhood. There 
is no socialism, for various grades exist, as they do in 
other countries ; but the king’s license is regulated so 
that his subjects are not compelled to be vicious instead 
of natural. 
Accompanied by about half-a-dozen “ faithfuls,” as 
he called his queer-looking native companions, Mr. Kerr 
proceeded northwards towards the Zambesi, through 
Mashonaland. 
During this journey we passed over numerous deserted 
Mashona fields, which had evidently been devastated 
during the frequent raids of the Matabeli impi (army or 
warriors). The savage invaders had driven the more 
industrious Mashona away to the eastward, killing all 
who came within reach. Thus the once well-tilled fields 
were left to assume again the unprofitable wildness of 
their primitive condition ; the furrows and ridges of the 
formerly cultivated land alone remaining to tell the 
sorrowful tale of conquest and desolation. 
While hunting for rhinoceros one morning I came 
upon some antelopes, one of which I wounded. In the 
course of the swift pursuit which followed, I was 
thoroughly startled by the sudden appearance in the 
chase of two men, who turned out to be Mashona 
hunters. Both .were armed with Hint-lock muskets. 
