THE F A R INTERIOR.
While here I scoured the country for miles in search of
game, but without any luck, although in bygone days
there used to he abundance of sport found in these parts.
That was before the war of extermination had been fairly
started. Now, through.the common property of gunpowder
and the familiarity of arms to the natives, this region has
been laid waste. You may travel not only for miles but
for days in the veldt without seeing a living thing, save a
few birds and, perhaps, a duiker. By no means a long time
ago the shrill trumpeting of the elephant might be heard
echoing among the kopjies which bank the river on the
n o rth ; hundreds of giraffes browsed and found shelter in
the luxuriant mopani forests; in short, almost every species
of wild animal to be found in South Africa was common
among the now silent groves which fringe the Inkwezi.
The native hunters, with their rude-looking arms, have
been the exterminators. The finely-finished, specially-made
rifles of the keen white sportsman have done little harm
among the big game, compared to the havoc made by these
imperfect-looking weapons, with their clumsy stocks covered
with hide, and altogether resembling a gas-pipe with a
frozen clod of earth at one end.
The utter want of animal life was inexpressibly sad.
No one could help being impressed-with the solemn loneliness
of the surroundings on the banks of the Inkwezi,
especially if they stood as I did at sunset and looked up
at the reddish-coloured rocky prominences of the ■ rude
kopjies protruding boldly from their thorny bush coverings
and flaunting the sunshine. Austere O o and immovable,*
they stood out stern in their original form, overlooking
the vast, lone forests, soundless, without a murmur to
break the stillness which reigned supreme through an
empire of solitude and desolation.
A D E AD L Y F L A SH OF LIGHTNING. 45
At this place some years ago, when my friend had made
camp, and was just inspanning for a start, a flash of
lightning instantly killed fourteen oxen which were
standing a short distance from his waggon under the shelter
of a tree. He had been taking them down for a friend.
The Kaffirs would not touch the beasts, as they thought the
disaster was a special dispensation of some witch. Mr.
Selous, however, cut the tongues out and took them with
him as provisions. During the night, the dogs ate them
all, and the superstitious Kaffirs doubtless thought the
same witch had determined that no part of the cattle
should become human food.
Early in the morning Selous left our camp on the
Inkwezi river on horseback, bound for Buluwayo, the
king’s kraal, in order to tell Lo-ben of the arrival of his
waggons, and also to state that he was bringing another
white man.
This was a very interesting part of the journey. We were
now nearing the villages of the warlike Matabeli, and every
day’s progress became full of incident.
I have said that the recent rains had made the roads
remarkably heavy, so that pulling the waggons was tremendously
hard upon the oxen when crossing the Makhobe
hills, where they sank almost to their bellies in the black
and treacherous mud, the wheels being up to the naves.
The old waggon groaned and creaked again grandly in the
struggle, and at one time we nearly broke our dissel boom,
which, for the benefit of the uninitiated, I may explain
means the pole of the waggon.
• Numbers of Matabeli warriors, with assegais and shields,
passed us. They seemed to be a very good-natured lot of folk.
The country was of granitic formation, with white quartz
cropping out here and there.