Now the question seemed to be, seeing that I had left my
party behind, Shall I ever see them again ? and if so, How
many will there be ? How philosophic we should become
under this system of cogitation, in which patience becomes
a second nature as annoyance finds no home in the mind I
After these periods of reflection I would return to camp,
and wile away the evenings by eating nuts, and listening
to Karemba playing upon his piano, with variations of
begging from old Sandani, who never left me except upon
urgent occasions.
During the daytime I had to give constant exhibitions
of shooting, varied, by ; feat-like tricks of different kinds,
which aroused and sustained a regular flow of merriment.
One man, whether sent by the chief or not I could not
say, was in constant attendance with his piano, set inside a
hollow calabash, which wonderfully improved the resonance
of the instrument. The calabash was decorated with dry
shells of fruit and various chips of hard substances, which
gave a sharp rattling accompaniment. This fellow would
dance and over and over again repeat the strange native
melody, which was grievously jerky in its modulations. His
position was directly in front of me. There he remained,
stamping upon the ground, and with spasmodic energy
advancing and retiring.
By this time I was beginning to feel thoroughly uneasy
about John, and had fully made up my mind to start in
search of him on the following day; for I had cobbled
my old shoes of zebra-skin until they were strong, and,
although yet a trifle bottle-nosed, my feet were also better.
Anxiety was certainly not allayed by Karemba’s doleful
shaking of the head as he remarked that John wanted to
go back to Buluwayo.
The people of this district, although belonging to the
Makorikori tribe, were in no way connected with the few of
the same name whom we had encountered at Chuzu’s.
Like the Mashona they live in detached bodies. One chief,
however, sometimes ruled over a number of towns. Chi-
babura is the enduna of Negomo, whose chief town, as I
said before, lay to the east of our position. . ^
Negomo had immediately been informed of my arrival,
and Karemba said he would be sure to come over, although
I earnestly prayed that he would not, knowing that his
appearance would mean a heavy call on the bank.
Four men came into the skerm to sell gold. Judging
from their costume they were evidently hunters. They
wanted powder for the gold. I think their desire was
to find out whether I had powder suitable for their muskets.
I asked them to show me the kind of powder they had.
They said they made it themselves, and I offered to give
them some of mine in exchange for some of theirs, as I had
a curiosity to see what kind of stuff they used. On examination
I found it to be very similar to a powder I had
seen made by the Mexicans. Taking , the efflorescence of
saltpetre they mix it with the charcoal made from the bark
of the mufati tree: it is baked in an earthen pot for five
or six hours, until caked, after which it is finely pulverised,
and exposed for some time to the sun’s rays. The powder
burns very slowly, and its explosive force is insignificant
pompared with the strength of ours.
I hardly know who was the first to teach these people
how to manufacture this mighty agent of the chase and of
warfare. Perhaps the earliest knowledge arose among people
who had been the slaves of the Portuguese, or from those
who had some connection with slave caravans belonging to
the east coast.
, I had become so used to evening musings, that whenever