“The next day Dorehill overtook me. He had set off the day after me, but without food or blankets, and was very glad to share mine. The following day we rode on to Gubuleweyo, the King’s Town. The king seemed surprised to see me, but did not speak to me the first day I saw him, except to greet me, and send me to his sister to drink beer. The next day, when I told him what had occurred, he seemed rather amused than otherwise, and told me the Makalakas had been trying to frighten me, and that he had never sent them any order to stop waggons. I believe, however, he is the one to blame, and had probably neglected to send word to the Makalakas to let me pass. I had written to him from Tati for leave to go to the Zambesi, and he had given it, but could never have sent word about me to the Makalakas, who are his subjects, and very much given to stopping waggons that have not a special permit from him. He now gave me a Matabele boy, at my request, to accompany me. “The little horse I sold him for £23 when last at his town had got over the sickness, as I fully expected he would, and was ‘salted,’ and must be now worth from £80 to £100. I should never have parted with him, had not Mr. Thomson advised me to do so, in order to ensure his goodwill in case I wanted to go to the Zambesi. It seems, however, that he did not do for me what he might have done, and it has been suggested to me that this was because I refused to sell him my gun also! I think I told you that I gave him a gun when first I saw him, but he wanted very much another I had, offering me £60 or £70 worth of ivory for it, but I persisted in refusing to let him have it, and then it was he asked for the horse, and would not let the subject drop till he got the animal, and got him at his own price. I am afraid he is very little better than the generality of Kafirs, and certainly I have experienced anything but generous treatment at his hands--indeed scarcely fair play. Yet there is no doubt that he is very much afraid of anything befalling white men in his country, either from sickness or any other cause; and now, when he told me to go to the Zambesi, he added, ‘Unless I was afraid of the sickness.’ This idea of sickness, and the new fear of a contagious cattle disease, brought by white men, are causing a good deal of trouble. Dorehill, however, got leave to take his waggon on, and intends to go to the Zambesi when he leaves the King’s. I rode back with Dorehill as far as his waggon, and there I met Mr. Thomson and his wife once more, returning to the Matabele after being absent at a missionary meeting at Kuruman.[47]