good family, left him, and we
subsequently met her and another of his wives proceeding up the country.

The ground is strewn with agates for a number of miles above the Falls;
but the fires, which burn off the grass yearly, have injured most of
those on the surface. Our men were delighted to hear that they do as
well as flints for muskets; and this with the new ideas of the value of
gold (_dalama_) and malachite, that they had acquired at Tette, made them
conceive that we were not altogether silly in picking up and looking at
stones.

Marching up the river, we crossed the Lekone at its confluence, about
eight miles above the island Kalai, and went on to a village opposite the
Island Chundu. Nambowe, the headman, is one of the Matebele or Zulus,
who have had to flee from the anger of Moselekatse, to take refuge with
the Makololo.

We spent Sunday, the 12th, at the village of Molele, a tall old Batoka,
who was proud of having formerly been a great favourite with Sebituane.
In coming hither we passed through patches of forest abounding in all
sorts of game. The elephants' tusks, placed over graves, are now allowed
to decay, and the skulls, which the former Batoka stuck on poles to
ornament their villages, not being renewed, now crumble into dust. Here
the famine, of which we had heard, became apparent, Molele's people being
employed in digging up the _tsitla_ root out of the marshes, and cutting
out the soft core of the young palm-trees, for food.

The village, situated on the side of a wooded ridge, commands an
extensive view of a great expanse of meadow and marsh lying along the
bank of the river. On these holmes herds of buffaloes and waterbucks
daily graze in security, as they have in the reedy marshes a refuge into
which they can run on the approach of danger. The pretty little tianyane
or ourebi is abundant further on, and herds of blue weldebeests or
brindled gnus (_Katoblepas Gorgon_) amused us by their fantastic capers.
They present a much more ferocious aspect than the lion himself, but are
quite timid. We never could, by waving a red handkerchief, according to
the prescription, induce them to venture near to us. It may therefore be
that the red colour excites their fury only when wounded or hotly
pursued. Herds of lechee or lechwe now enliven the meadows; and they and
their younger brother, the graceful poku, smaller, and of a rounder
contour, race together towards the grassy fens. We venture to ca