tive tribe, except that martial one which was ruled by Gungunhana on
the eastern frontier of Mashonaland, and despised even the white men,
thinking them but a handful. The indunas, who had visited London in
1891, endeavoured to warn them of the resources of the whites, and Lo
Bengula himself was opposed to war. But the young braves, who, like
Cetewayo's Zulus, desired to "wash their spears," overbore the
reluctance of the monarch, only to perish in the war of 1893.

Towards Fort Salisbury the country rises and grows prettier as it shows
signs of a more copious rainfall. New flowers appear, and the grass is
greener. About twelve miles before the town is reached one crosses a
considerable stream with a long, deep, clear pool among rocks, and is
told of the misadventure of an English doctor who, after a hasty plunge
into the pool, was drying himself on a flat stone just above the water
when a crocodile suddenly raised its hideous snout, seized his leg in
its jaws, and dragged him down. Fortunately his companions were close at
hand and succeeded after a struggle in forcing the beast to drop its
prey.

The town itself is built at the foot of a low, wooded hill, on the top
of which stood the original fort, hastily constructed of loose stones in
1890, and occupied in serious earnest for defence during the Matabili
war. It spreads over a wide space of ground, with houses scattered here
and there, and has become, since the draining of the marshy land on the
banks of a streamlet which runs through it, free from malaria and quite
healthy. Though the sun heat was great in the end of October (for one is
only eighteen degrees from the equator), the air was so fresh and dry
that I could walk for miles in the full blaze of noon, and the nights
were too cool to sit out on the _stoep_ (the wooden verandah which one
finds at the front of every South African house) without an overcoat.
Just round the town the country is open and grassy, but the horizon in
every direction is closed by woods. The views are far prettier than
those from Bulawayo, and the position of the town makes it a better
centre for the administration as well as the commerce of the Company's
territories. It is only two hundred and twenty miles from the Zambesi at
Tete, and only three hundred and seventy from the port of Beira. The
Company did well to encourage the growth of Bulawayo immediately after
the conquest of 1893, because it was necessary to explore and to
establi