“His voice was weak, but he evidently enjoyed his supper and the warmth of the fire. My boys said he was a ‘wolf’--the term applied to outlaws--and that he ought to be killed or driven away. He told me that it was five days since he had been set upon; and that, after he had been left for dead, he got up and ran away on coming to himself. He wanted to go under my protection to the Zambesi, an honour, however, which I declined, but I gave him a blanket and some things to buy food with, and told him he must go next morning, and advised him to make for Mungwato. He asked for a pipe, and for a drink of brandy, which reminded me of Old King Cole; and if he had been given to amusing himself by listening to the violin, I have no doubt he would have asked for a tune, as he seemed disposed to take things very philosophically. I poured some arnica and water into the hole, and when he lifted up his head a perfect stream of it ran down his back. He said if he was not killed he should see me at Mungwato when I returned. I believe he did reach Mungwato alive, but I don’t know whether he remained there.[54] “A perfectly favourable communication having been received from the king, I was all ready to continue my journey towards the Zambesi, which I fondly hoped to see in a few weeks. On the 10th of August I was again _en route_, and on the 18th I reached the first Makalaka kraal, travelling slowly. This was the same point I reached before, when I started with the Boer and his boy. Here we decided to stay, to lay in our store of corn,--enough to keep our Kafirs when game could not be got, our dogs, and, above all, our horses. At the place where the waggons stand where they are left by people going to the Zambesi, the journey having to be completed on foot, no corn is to be bought, nor any on the road, as there are no corn-growing people between these Makalakas and the Zambesi. Therefore enough must be taken at this point to last till one is amongst the Makalakas again on one’s way back. “Here my companion was laid up with a bad finger. He had run the head of a needle into it whilst sewing, and not feeling much at the time had taken very little notice of it till it began to give him pain, and then he suffered terribly. The end of the finger appeared dead, and I was so much afraid of mortification setting in that I advised him to lose no time in trying to reach Thomson, the missionary, in order that he might have the first joint of the finger amputated if necessary. I should have gone back with him, but he begged me not to do so, assuring me that I should be of no use to him, which indeed seemed likely to be the case. I therefore determined to push on.