“The brothers Garden are going to the Zambesi also, the same way. There is another way of reaching the Falls from here, shorter than the Tati road, but at certain seasons deficient in water. It is to the left of the Tati road. I should have preferred it, but wanted to leave some things at Tati, and was not sure of finding water, going by it. It appears, however, it would have been all right, had I decided on that route. They tell me here two English tourists, one of them called Bond, have just left here, trekking slowly to the Falls. This year and last the Falls have been in great request apparently, as Garland and Dawnay visited them last year, and now the Gardens, Bond, and myself, are all bound there, this. Selous too is very anxious to see them, and will probably manage it. We are still in lots of time, in fact the great fear now is of going there too soon, but I shall go slowly, and remain where it is healthy till it is the same at the Zambesi. “The boys, as one’s Kafir satellites are called, whatever their age, are far more liable to fever of course than their ‘bosses.’ Lying out naked, or with only a skin or blanket and a fire, to keep the cold away at the unhealthy season, is not likely to prevent an attack of fever. Three or four of my boys have had it. I have given them quinine, and there is only one of them ill now. This is a little fellow I call ‘Quilp.’ He is perhaps eighteen, and a perfect dwarf. The race he belongs to, the Bushmen of this country, are usually tall. These Bushmen are a curious race, who probably had their homes in the veldt long before the Mungwato and Matabele people came here and conquered it, and before the races they conquered came. The Mungwato people are an utterly different nation from the Matabele. The latter have two other nations, the Makalaka and Mashona, living in bondage under them, who are far more ingenious and versed in the arts than their conquerors, having mined and worked in metals and woven stuffs for ages. They are not all conquered yet; but the Matabele king is constantly sending out parties of warriors, who steal their cattle, kill the old people, and carry the children into slavery. The little slaves grow up in the families of the Matabele, and when they are old enough to marry, become free and are incorporated into the nation, in which way Lobengula increases his people and his power. The slaves call those of their conquerors to whom they are allotted, their ‘fathers,’ and they have to work for them, though more like adopted children than anything else. Many of the conquered people, however, are not made part of the nation, but suffered to live on with a Matabele headman placed over them. It is usually slave boys that one gets as servants. They have to look after the cattle and make themselves generally useful, carrying one’s arms, blankets, or anything else required, when one goes for a day or two into the veldt. I have now six boys, all young, which