"The telegraph wire is now at Fort Charter, and before the end of next month the office will be opened here in Salisbury, and Mashunaland will be in telegraph communication with the whole of the civilized world. This, if you come to think of it, is really a magnificent piece of enterprise. We are having the most lovely weather up here, although it is the middle of summer and the rainy season; nice cool cloudy days, with showers of rain occasionally, but nothing worth speaking of. The Government buildings are progressing rapidly. We now have an abundance of vegetables here. Everything thrives marvellously, potatoes, cabbage, onions, shalots, radishes, lettuces, etc. etc. Wheat sowed in August last by the head of the Africander Bond deputation, ripened and was cut in four months and a few days from the date of sowing, and has been sent down to Cape Town. Major Johnson's agricultural expert pronounced it to be as fine a sample of wheat as he had ever seen, and says he will be able to raise two crops a year. In fact, the country is now proved to be an exceptionally fine one for both agriculture and stock-farming, in spite of Mr. Labouchere and Lord Randolph Churchill. The gold prospects are also improving, and many of Mr. Perkins' prognostications have already been falsified. I think there is no doubt that this country will have a grand future, but the development will be very slow for some time yet; in fact, until a railway has been made from the East coast, at least as far as Manica. Once this railway has been built, however, the country must be developed very quickly, I think. All impartial persons agree that the climate on this plateau is cooler and altogether more enjoyable than that of Kimberley and many other parts of civilized South Africa; but, of course, directly one leaves the plateau and gets into the low bush-country towards the Zambesi, the East coast, or the Transvaal, fever is rife during the rainy season. Unfortunately, most of the gold-belts are in this unhealthy zone, and until the bush is cut down, the land cultivated, and good houses are built round the mines, miners will suffer from fever in the bad season; but this is the same in all new countries. I am now going down to make a road from Manica to the other side of Massi-Kessi, so as to be ready from our side to meet the tramway or railway which the Mozambique Company have undertaken to make from the Pungwi river. My intention is to leave the Company's service in June next, and in August I shall go down to the East coast, and hope to be in Johannesburg in October, and in England before the end of the year. I do not intend to re-visit Mashunaland for several years, but I shall have considerable interests there, which will increase in value as the country develops.