force of the Chartered Company did not know how
to get over the range of hills rising to the north of
the Tokwe Eiver, until Mr. Selous chanced to hit on
this gully between the mountains leading up to the
higher plateau. Its scenery, to my mind, is distinctly
overrated. It is green and luxuriant in tropical
vegetation, with the bubbling stream Godobgwe
running down it. The hills on either side are fairly
fine, but it could be surpassed easily in Wales and
Scotland, or even Yorkshire. In point of fact, the
scenery of Mashonaland is nothing if not quaint.
Providential Pass is distinctly commonplace, whereas
the granite kopje scenery is the quaintest form of
landscape I have ever seen.
Port Victoria has no redeeming point of beauty
about it whatsoever, being placed on a bare flat
plateau, surrounded in the rainy season by swamps.
Nearly everybody was down with fever when we
got there ; provisions were at famine prices for example,
seven shillings for apound of bacon and the same
price for a tin of jam—and the melancholy aspect of
affairs was enhanced by the hundred and fifty saddles
placed in rows within the fort, which had once
belonged to the hundred and fifty horses brought up
by the pioneers, all of which had died of horse
sickness.
The diseases to which quadrupeds are subject in
this country are appalling. One man of our acquaintance
brought up eighty-seven horses, of which eighty-
six died before he got to Port Victoria:- The still
mysterious disease called horse sickness is supposed
to come from grazing in the early dew, but of this
nobody is as yet sure; the poor animals die in a few
hours of suffocation, and none but ‘ salted horses,’ i.e.
horses which have had the disease and recovered, are
of any use up here. Our three horses were warranted
salted, but this did not prevent one of them
from having a recurrence of the disease, which gave
us a horrible fright and caused us to expend a whole
bottle of whisky on it, to which we fondly imagine it
owes its life. Another horse also gave us a similar
alarm. One morning its nose was terribly swollen, and
the experienced professed to see signs of the sickness
in its eye. Nevertheless nothing came of it, and in
due course the swelling went down. On close enquiry
we discovered that it had been foolishly tied for the
night to a euphorbia tree, and had pricked its nose
with the poisonous thorns.
As for oxen, the diseases they are subject to make
one wonder that any of them ever get up country
alive ; besides the fatal lung sickness they suffer from
what is called the ‘ drunk sickness,’ a species of
staggers. When we reached Zimbabwe nearly all
our oxen developed the mange and swollen legs, but
recovered owing to the long rest. Besides these casualties
they often die from eating poisonous grasses ;
also in some parts the unwholesome herbage, or
sour veldt, as it is known amongst the drivers, produces
kidney diseases and other horrors amongst
them. 6
All around Port Victoria, they told us, the grass was
sour, so we only remained there long enough to make
E