The men are skilful hunters, and kill elephants and
buffaloes with long heavy spears. We halted a few minutes on the morning
of the 12th July, opposite the narrow island of Sikakoa, which has a
village on its lower end. We were here told that Moselekatse's chief
town is a month's distance from this place. They had heard, moreover,
that the English had come to Moselekatse, and told him it was wrong to
kill men; and he had replied that he was born to kill people, but would
drop the habit; and, since the English came, he had sent out his men, not
to kill as of yore, but to collect tribute of cloth and ivory. This
report referred to the arrival of the Rev. R. Moffat, of Kuruman, who, we
afterwards found, had established a mission. The statement is
interesting as showing that, though imperfectly expressed, the purport of
the missionaries' teaching had travelled, in a short time, over 300
miles, and we know not how far the knowledge of the English operations on
the coast spread inland.

When abreast of the high wooded island Kalabi we came in contact with one
of the game-laws of the country, which has come down from the most
ancient times. An old buffalo crossed the path a few yards in front of
us; our guide threw his small spear at its hip, and it was going off
scarcely hurt, when three rifle balls knocked it over. "It is mine,"
said the guide. He had wounded it first, and the established native game-
law is that the animal belongs to the man who first draws blood; the two
legs on one side, by the same law, belonged to us for killing it. This
beast was very old, blind of one eye, and scabby; the horns, mere stumps,
not a foot long, must have atrophied, when by age he lost the strength
distinctive of his sex; some eighteen or twenty inches of horn could not
well be worn down by mere rubbing against the trees. We saw many
buffaloes next day, standing quietly amidst a thick thorn-jungle, through
which we were passing. They often stood until we were within fifty or a
hundred yards of them.

On the 14th July we left the river at the mountain-range, which, lying
north-east and south-west across the river, forms the Kariba gorge. Near
the upper end of the Kariba rapids, the stream Sanyati enters from the
south, and is reported to have Moselekatse's principal cattle-posts at
its sources; our route went round the end of the mountains, and we
encamped beside the village of the generous chief Moloi, who brought us
three im