"Before the rainy season is over, the Company will probably have come to some definite understanding with Lobengula, who, by the by, recognized my importance in the expedition by sending down a message to Sir Henry Loch, the High Commissioner, that 'Selous had turned his oxen and his horses into his (Lobengula's) cornfields.'" Writing from Motoko's kraal on November 16th, he says: "Before coming here, I have had no difficulty with any of the other chiefs, but here I have had a lot of worry and trouble. My great difficulty is that the whole country is really ruled, not by the chief (Motoko) but by one whom they call the 'Lion-God.' This appears to be a hereditary office, and the holder of it lives away by himself in the mountains, and is looked upon with superstitious dread and reverence by the Chief and his people. However, I have now got things on a friendly footing, but I shall have to go back to Fort Salisbury, in order to get certain articles to appease the 'Lion-God,' and then return here before I shall finally be able to conclude the treaty with Motoko. I am under engagement to the Company till the end of next August, and do not think I shall take a fresh engagement, as I am anxious to get home. Having passed the best part of my life in the wilderness and amongst savages, I should now like to see something of civilized countries, with perhaps an occasional short trip into an out-of-the-way place. If I live to be an old man, I should like to re-visit this country, thirty or forty years hence, by railroad." In January, 1891, he returned to Umtali, where he received orders to cut a road from that place to Lower Revui, and afterwards to lay a new road from the Odzi river to Salisbury. February was the wet season, so it was with some difficulty that he set about his task on the Odzi in company with Mr. W. L. Armstrong. On May 3rd, however, he had made one hundred and fifty miles of road to Salisbury, riding three strong horses to a standstill in his numerous peregrinations. Then news reached him of further trouble with the Portuguese, and he was asked by Mr. Colquhoun to take two waggon-loads of stores and ammunition to the small British garrison isolated at Manica, where there was an imminent prospect of fighting. Whereat he expresses his views clearly as to his own inclinations as regards soldiering. "Now I am not a fighting man, and neither look forward with enthusiasm to the prospect of being shot, nor feel any strong desire to shoot anyone else."