elf as to this, my next business was to arrange for
the dispatch of Piet as my ambassador into the Mashona country. I had
been considering the matter very carefully during the past two days,
recalling to mind all that my friend, Major Henderson, had told me with
regard to his experiences among the Mashona, and the advice that he had
given me; and I finally determined that my most prudent course would be
to send Piet into the country absolutely empty-handed, with a message to
the effect that I desired the permission of the king to cross his
borders, traverse the country, and visit him at his Place, hunting and
trading with his people on the way. I was at first somewhat undecided
as to whether or not I should entrust Piet with a present for the king,
but I finally decided that it would be better to wait until I should
obtain audience with His Majesty and then personally hand him the gift;
otherwise, for aught that I could tell to the contrary, the sable
monarch might seize the gift and then do away with poor Piet in some
horrible manner, while if the Tottie went empty-handed there would be no
inducement for the king to destroy him, or rather there would be the
prospect of the gift to deter him from doing so. Therefore, upon the
following morning, after charging the man with my message, and making
him repeat it over and over again to me until there was no possibility
of his forgetting it, I sent him across the river on foot with all the
provisions that we had left, and then, riding Prince and leading Punch,
to whose saddle I had securely strapped the elephant gun and my stock of
ammunition, I set out, accompanied by the dogs, on my return to the spot
where I had left the wagon.

Upon my arrival I found Jan, my Tottie driver, in great tribulation, it
appearing that he had been beset by lions during the second night of my
absence, and that the brutes had killed no less than three of the oxen
and both zebras, despite the utmost efforts of himself and 'Ngulubi, the
Bantu voorlouper; while two other oxen had died through eating tulip, a
poisonous plant which he had too late discovered grew in profusion in
the immediate neighbourhood of the outspan. Furthermore, it appeared
that four of the other oxen had suffered severely from the same poison,
but had been saved by the prompt administration of a decoction made from
the roots of the plant. This was serious news, because I had promised
Piet that he should find us outspanned a