With these extracts the present period of the traveller’s wanderings, so far as his Journal is concerned, may be allowed to terminate. The weather, which had up to this time continued cool at night, began towards the end of September to be intensely hot and oppressive, though still liable to considerable variation; so much so indeed that one day about the middle of October the extreme cold brought the swallows into the houses for shelter and protection. The Zambesi now abandoned, Frank Oates, on the 8th of October, sent two boys with a message to the king, asking for leave to hunt a few weeks on the Shashani, which was readily accorded him; but he did not start immediately--his waggon required some repairs, and he was not feeling well. Whilst thus waiting a while longer, to recruit his health and complete his preparations, two gentlemen--Messrs. Bond and Robertson--arrived on their return from the Zambesi, having gone there early in the year. They had shot elephants near the river, and the former had made some pretty sketches of the Falls. Other parties also now came in from the Zambesi. At length, on the 3d of November, Frank Oates once more set off into the veldt--not to the Shashani, however, as he had intended, but again in a northerly direction, for reasons shortly to be stated. Before starting on this occasion, he wrote home some letters of considerable length, reviewing his experiences of the past three months, since the date of his last departure from Tati on the 25th of July, which may here be given almost as they stand, entire. The first of these, written to his mother, is as follows:-- “TATI, _October 1st, 1874_. “When you see the above date, you will perhaps think that I have returned from the Zambesi; but the fates seem to have conspired against my reaching that river. After last writing home I left here on the 25th of July in company with Stoffel, the trader I told you of, and with every prospect of a most successful trip. The series of mishaps which led to my final (for this season at any rate) return here on the 18th of September, I will presently relate. I say, ‘this season at any rate,’ but I think I shall now give up the Zambesi altogether, consoling myself with the adage--‘Tis not in mortals to _command_ success.’ I read somewhere of some one replying to this--‘But they can _deserve_ it;’ and a third party, who I think showed his wisdom, suggested, as an amendment, that they could ‘_do without_ it.’ Now, I think, to a certain extent, I deserved it for my persistent efforts to attain it, and may hope to march out with the honours of war, and ‘do without it.’