ad first arrived at the ford, I seized the favourable opportunity,
and safely transferred the wagon and all my other belongings to the
Mashona side of the river upon the afternoon of the day of Piet's
return; and, following the course of the stream to which I attributed
the formation of the ford--and which, Piet informed me, led direct to
Gwanda--outspanned for the night some six miles to the northward of the
Limpopo.

The next day we continued our trek, and shortly before noon arrived at
the first Mashona village on the route. It was a place of some
importance, containing about a thousand huts of the usual beehive shape,
but somewhat larger than those usually built by the Zulus, and with
entrances large enough to enable a man to pass through by merely bending
his body instead of having to go down upon his knees. The village was
circular in plan, and was protected by a solidly constructed stockade,
built of stout tree trunks driven deeply into the ground, with a slight
outward slope; the stockade being about sixteen feet high on the
outside, with the tops of the piles sharpened to render it unclimbable.
There were four gateways in the stockade, giving access to the two
principal streets, which crossed each other at right angles,
intersecting in the centre of the village, at which point there was a
spacious open square, where the public business of the village was
transacted and where the village sports were held. We did not enter the
village, but outspanned at a distance of about half a mile from its
eastern gate.

The cattle had scarcely been turned loose to graze, under the
guardianship of 'Ngulubi, the voorlouper, when the headman of the
village, accompanied by some half a dozen minor dignitaries, and
followed by ten women bearing baskets containing preternaturally skinny
fowls, eggs, green mealie cobs, sugar cane, and calabashes of milk,
emerged from the village and advanced upon the wagon. The men were
unarmed, and the presence of the women with the baskets--the contents of
which were of course a present to us--showed that the visit was to be
one of ceremony and compliment; therefore with Piet's assistance I at
once proceeded to unpack one of my bales of "truck", and withdrew
therefrom the articles which I proposed to present in turn. I had
hardly completed my preparations when the little party arrived, and I
had an opportunity to study the first Mashonas I had ever seen.

Both men and women were finely bui