SOLDIERING AND SPORT IN MASHONALAND. 
75 
7-prs. and Machine guns, has done a vast amount of difficult and 
dangerous work, in the performance of which both officers and men 
have undergone hardships and overcome difficulties in a manner which 
would have done credit to many a “ regular ” regiment. But towards 
the end of 1891, the differences with the Portuguese and the Transvaal 
Boers having been satisfactorily settled, and the fears of an attack by 
the Matabele having somewhat subsided, the strength of the force was 
reduced to some 200 men who are distributed amongst the various 
centres of population. The telegraph line has been extended from 
Bechuanaland through Fort Tuli to Salisbury, but in the event of 
hostilities this line would be impossible to defend throughout its great 
length, and the heliograph, which as so many officers will remember, 
has proved so invaluable in Zululand and elsewhere, would no doubt be 
called into requisition, although the country is by no means so well 
suited for the establishing of lines of signal stations, as many other 
parts of South Africa. A line could be worked without much difficulty 
between Salisbury and Umtali, on what is known as the coast route, 
but on the other main road from Tuli to Salisbury, there are consider¬ 
able obstacles in the way. For the first 200 miles from Tuli northwards, 
stations have been selected at convenient distances, but the unhealthi¬ 
ness of the district would render it difficult to keep signallers in them, 
at all events during the rainy season. From the edge of the high 
veldt to Fort Salisbury (another 200 miles) the country is so flat, that 
considerable difficulty is experienced in selecting stations without 
unduly multiplying their number, or placing them on hills so far distant 
from the main road as to make the supply of rations for the signallers 
and the garrisons necessary for their protection, a matter of consider¬ 
able difficulty,, 
Enough has been said as to characteristics of the country, from a 
military point of view, to give a rough idea of some of the difficulties 
which would have to be encountered in the event of its being necessary 
to send troops into Mashonaland, and from what has been said it will 
be gathered that the only enemies which the occupants of the country 
now have to fear are the Matabeles, who are a branch of the ancient 
Zulu nation, and have inherited the fierce and warlike characteristics 
of their forefathers, from which it is judged that, if the time ever 
comes, when they find themselves engaged in war with the white man 
they will prove themselves foemen worthy of his steel. 
This country of Mashonaland, till within the last two years, having 
been left undisturbed by the sound of rifle shot, except by the great 
African hunter, Mr. Selous, and a few other enterprising sportsmen, is 
teeming with game of all sorts, and the statement of an enthusiast, 
that every animal worth shooting except the Polar bear and the Bengal 
tiger could be found in the country, although not literally true, is not 
really so wide of the mark, for besides all the different kinds of buck, 
big and small, which inhabit Southern Africa, there are lions, elephants, 
buffalo, quagga, giraffe, leopards, wild pig, hyenas, hippopotami and 
rhinoceros, the last-named animal being, perhaps, the least often met 
with. Taking the game in the above-mentioned order, it is unneces¬ 
sary to describe here the different kinds of buck, but a few remarks 
