d to credit the statement of their sworn enemies. They
imagined that the parcels were directed to me as a mere trick, whereby
to place witchcraft-medicine into the hands of the Makololo. When the
Matebele on the south bank called to the Makololo on the north to come
over in canoes and receive the goods sent by Moffat to "Nake", the
Makololo replied, "Go along with you, we know better than that; how
could he tell Moffat to send his things here, he having gone away to the
north?" The Matebele answered, "Here are the goods; we place them now
before you, and if you leave them to perish the guilt will be yours."
When they had departed the Makololo thought better of it, and, after
much divination, went over with fear and trembling, and carried the
packages carefully to an island in the middle of the stream; then,
building a hut over them to protect them from the weather, they left
them; and there I found they had remained from September, 1854, till
September, 1855, in perfect safety. Here, as I had often experienced
before, I found the news was very old, and had lost much of its interest
by keeping, but there were some good eatables from Mrs. Moffat. Among
other things, I discovered that my friend, Sir Roderick Murchison, while
in his study in London, had arrived at the same conclusion respecting
the form of the African continent as I had lately come to on the spot
(see note p. 512 [footnote to Chapter 24 Paragraph 7]); and that,
from the attentive study of the geological map of Mr. Bain and other
materials, some of which were furnished by the discoveries of Mr.
Oswell and myself, he had not only clearly enunciated the peculiar
configuration as an hypothesis in his discourse before the Geographical
Society in 1852, but had even the assurance to send me out a copy for my
information! There was not much use in nursing my chagrin at being
thus fairly "cut out" by the man who had foretold the existence of
the Australian gold before its discovery, for here it was in black and
white. In his easy-chair he had forestalled me by three years, though I
had been working hard through jungle, marsh, and fever, and, since the
light dawned on my mind at Dilolo, had been cherishing the pleasing
delusion that I should be the first to suggest the idea that the
interior of Africa was a watery plateau of less elevation than flanking
hilly ranges.

Having waited a few days at Sesheke till the horses which we had left at
Linyanti should arrive, we