present of 402: worth of goods from the Chartered
Company to a chief, ’Mtoko by name, who lived
about 120 miles north-east of Fort Salisbury. His
country had as yet been hardly visited by white men,
and was reported to be replete with anthropological
interests. Then we were to make our way down to
Makoni’s country, where the existence of ruins was
brought before our notice, and so on to IJmtali and
the coast. This prospective trip would take us many
weeks, and would lead us through much country
hitherto unexplored, so that ample preparations and
a careful adjustment of our belongings were necessary.
The best interpreter to be had was kindly placed
at our disposal by the Chartered Company, as the
language in those parts differs essentially from that
spoken at Zimbabwe and' the Sabi, a certain portion
of which had by this time penetrated into our brains.
The interpreter in question was just then absent
from Fort Salisbury, so to occupy our time we
decided on a trip to the Mazoe Valley, and the old
gold workings which exist there.
Having despatched three donkeys with bedding
and provisions the night before, we left Fort Salisbury
one lovely morning, September 15, and rode
through country as uninteresting as one could well
imagine until we reached Mount Hampden. Somehow
or another we had formed impressions of this
mountain of a wholly erroneous character.; It has
an historic interest as, a landmark," named after one
of the first explorers of Mashonaland, but beyond
this, it is miserably disappointing. Instead of the fine
mountain which our imaginations had painted for us,
we saw only a miserable round elevation above the
surrounding plain, which might possibly be as high
as Box Hill, certainly no higher. It is covered with
trees of stunted growth; it is absolutely featureless ;
and is alone interesting from its isolation, and the
vast area of flat veldt which its summit commands.
Soon after leaving Mount Hampden the views
grew very much finer, and as we descended into the
valley of the Tatagora, a tributary of the Mazoe, we
entered into a distinctly new class of scenery. Here
everything is rich and green ; the. rounded hills and
wooded heights were an immense relief to us after
the continuous though fantastic granite kopjes which
we had travelled amongst during the whole of our
sojourn in Mashonaland. The delicate green leaves
of the machabel tree, on which, I am- told, elephants
delight to feed, were just now at their best, and take
the place of the mimosa, mapani, and other trees,
of which we had grown somewhat weary. The soil,
too, is here of a reddish colour, and we enjoyed all
the pleasurable sensations of getting into an entirely
new formation, after the eye had been accustomed to
one style of colouring for months.
As we proceeded down the valley the hills closed
in and became higher; occasional rugged peaks stood
up out of gentle wooded slopes; and if one had
ignored the trivial detail of foliage, one might have
imagined that we were plunging into a pretty Norwegian
valley with a stream rushing down its midst.
Presently we came upon a nest of native kraals,