each other. A volume could not have better
expressed his meaning. Down the stream lay the ruins which had been
formerly mentioned. Right in their onward path was the dreaded
tetse-fly, sure death to cattle.

"Let us hold a council of war, Wyzinski," said Hughes, after the two had
looked at each other in dead silence. "Here, Luji, come here. We are
going to have a palaver."

"Masheesh, must we send back the waggon?"

The Matabele chief spoke volubly, frequently using the word "Tati," and
then pointing to the river which was running near them, calling it
sometimes the Sabe, sometimes the Ouro.

"Do you hear?" asked Wyzinski, eagerly. "The Thati and the Ramaquotan
rivers run into the Limpopo, and this river he calls the Ouro, or golden
river."

"Who owns the land, Luji?" asked Hughes.

"Mozelkatse once owned it, master. Now it is the country of Machin, the
Batonga, and the Banyai."

"Can Masheesh procure a canoe? and can we go down the river?" were the
next questions.

Both were answered satisfactorily. The Batonga were a friendly people,
like the Bechuanas, and feared the Matabele Kaffirs, whose chief,
Mozelkatse, had more than once punished them; and after a long talk, it
was determined to send back the waggons and horses to the nearest
mission, that at Santa Lucia Bay, and go down the river to the sea,
before breaking up the camp at Gorongoza.

"It is hard to send back our waggon," exclaimed Hughes, during a pause
in the work of packing.

"We should but have to leave it and all it contains on the way, if we
met with the tetse-fly. Its sting is sure death to cattle."

"And does it harm man?" inquired Hughes.

"Singular to say it does not and I do not believe in its existence so
near this coast-line; still it's no use running the risk."

"We then resolve to strike the Zambesi, somewhere near Tete or Senna?"

"Yes, passing through the kingdom of this same chief, Machin, who seems
to be almost a rival to Mozelkatse."

It was with feelings of great regret the two saw the waggon with its
great tilt, lumbering away an hour or two before sunset, under the
charge of the missionary's men, and bound for the station of Saint Lucia
Bay,--it had been their home so long, that the cattle and horses seemed
to them as friends. It was hard to part with them. The ground was
strewed with packages, which were to be made up in the most commodious
form for carrying, and the party was reduced to its original numbe