“A flower is almost an unheard-of thing at present, everything being dried up; but the thorny shrubs (mimosas), with their yellow sweet-scented blossoms, are an exception, and a sign of approaching spring. The shrubs they grow on are covered with long sharp thorns, and there are no leaves on them, but blossoms are appearing. There is another kind with hooked thorns and whitish sallow-scented blossoms, which attain the size of a good-sized English fruit-tree. The thorns which defend nearly every tree here are a great impediment in travelling through the bush. “The nights are now cool, though not so sharp as they were a while ago. The thermometer seldom falls much below 50°. It is coolest just before sunrise. At mid-day and in the afternoon it gets considerably above 80° in the shade, in fact I should set the point reached at nearer 90°. As I sit writing in my tent, I hear the engine working--an odd sound up in these remote regions.” Three days later, September 2d, W. E. Oates supplements this letter:-- “I am just adding a line to the above, to leave it before I go. Frank left the day before yesterday, to go to the King’s Town. The king (Lobengula) is the great nigger chief here, and behaves very well to all white men. I am staying with Buckley and Gilchrist, and we are now going to the Shashani River, about five days’ journey. I think Frank will be all right. He has a Cape Colony black man with him, who knows this country well, and speaks excellent English.[13] He was up here with Sir John Swinburne, who owns the gold-mine, so I am not afraid for Frank if he takes care of himself.... “The country here is regularly burnt up now, and will continue so till the rains fall in November. The river is nothing but a dry bed of sand, with a little pool of water in it about three miles off--the only water near for miles. You may imagine the luxury of a bath, under such circumstances, out of the question. There are two men here who have been very kind, one sending us milk twice a day--and, I can assure you, milk is exceedingly scarce. The country is most uninteresting; nothing to see but thick bush, composed chiefly of low thorn-trees with immense spikes, which hold you fast if you get amongst them.