The boys, having finished their meal, now indulge in post-prandial rhetoric, and dialectic ping-pong. The ruddy glow of the fire reddens the huts and shines on the naked bodies and limbs of the crowd, making them resemble polished ebony, while as their tall and well-proportioned figures with kingly walk pass and repass in the flickering lurid light they appear to resemble shades from across the Styx. Such a scene is at least Dantesque, and to many might seem weird. But the boys are as happy as their hearts can wish. Their joviality is irrepressible. Harmony from their instruments, rhythmic chants, peals of laughter, wild recitatives, constant talking, with perhaps a wrestling match and a war-dance executed in simulated form thrown in, fill up two hours, by the end of which they are all under their blankets, sleeping and snoring as only natives can. “Porridge,” the _kya_ boy’s under-study, and eight years old, has brought in the hut door, which also acts as drawing-board and stoep table, and has gone to the kitchen-hut, where he rolls himself up in his tiny blanket. An occasional bark of a baboon or wolf, or yelp of jackal, or hoot of owl, is heard in addition to the usual nightjar and frog choruses. The sounds of the village drums, and of singing and dancing at Mogabe’s or Chenga’s kraal, where the full-moon feast is being celebrated, are wafted down to us. The night is perfectly lovely, but for Havilah Camp the day is past and over. But the moon—itself a dead world—looks down upon the ruins of a dead city and on the graves of a forgotten race, as it has done ever since the stern policeman Fate ordered these ancients to “Pass on!” CHAPTER IV ZIMBABWE DISTRICT _Chipo-popo[25] Falls_ These are about two miles and a half north-east of Zimbabwe, on the Motelekwe Road. The Chipo-popo, which is a perennial stream with its source on the south side of the Beroma Range, crosses the road and runs towards the Moshagashi River, which it joins four miles lower down. Immediately to the north of the drift (ford) the stream descends abruptly down granite ledges into a deep ravine, on the east side of which is Chipo-popo kraal. The falls are reached by leaving the road at thirty yards on the Zimbabwe side of the drift and going between some large boulders on the north side of the road. This is an interesting spot at any time, but especially so when rains have swollen the torrent. A path from Chipo-popo kraal leads to Oatlands Farm, four miles north-east of Zimbabwe, where Naidoo, an Indian, has an extensive market-garden. The walk to the falls and to Oatlands Farm is a very easy afternoon’s exercise. • • • • •