“_August 24th._--Trekked for three hours, then rested, and started again at 11 A.M.... Reached the Shashe about two, and outspanned. We had come extremely slow; sun hot, sand heavy, road bad, bullocks tired. Ground broken and stony, and falling towards the Shashe. Many crags crop up around, and in front of us are some kopjes--Hendrik says where the Tati is. The Shashe is a very broad river, all deep sand, with water in one place where it has been dug for, both for cattle and people. We enlarge the hole (hard work under the heat of the sun), and let the cattle drink.... There is an old Bushman here, destitute and alone. He says the Mungwato men took his gun. The other side of the river, he says, is under Lobengula, this under Sekomi, and Hendrik says the Makalakas are not independent, all here belonging to the Matabele and Mungwato sovereignties. These Bushmen are, I suppose, the original inhabitants. Hendrik says they are slaves to the others. They certainly are outcasts. This man does not beg, takes what is given him, and lies naked with his head on a stone by the fire at night. He has no blanket.... Watched the Bushman make his fire with two sticks. He took off his sandals, placed a stick on one of them, and holding it firm with his foot, twisted the other stick rapidly between both hands, working it in a little hollow of the first stick, till black dust began to form. This soon turned red-hot, and there was fire like that in a pipe.” Continuing their journey on the 26th, the brothers reached the Tati the same evening, where a small English settlement of a few huts has collected round the gold mines, which are being worked by Sir John Swinburne. “There is nothing remarkable in the scenery here,” writes Frank Oates soon after their arrival; “a few kopjes only, with low scrub and trees. Everything is very much dried up. The river is broad, with deep sand in its bed. Yesterday Nelson[11] gave me a live fish, four or five inches long, something like a perch. He says they live in the sand now. Water is got by digging in the river’s bed.... The veldt where we are outspanned,” he concludes, “is quite ploughed up with the spoor of elephants which used to come here five years ago, and have been found quite near here since.” At this point Frank Oates and his brother remained a few days before separating, and on the 29th the former wrote home the following letter, giving some account of his future plans, and adding some particulars to his experiences above related:--