“Lee has just sold twelve red oxen--Africanders, with white faces--for £100, unwillingly. His other oxen are all in the hunting veldt. He has, however, let me have Smith’s as far as Manyami’s, with a boy to bring them back. I think he calls it ten miles to Manyami’s, and from his (Lee’s) house to the King’s fifty odd miles. He says he saw some eland to-day, but game is not plentiful just here. However, it is worse along the road to the King’s, as kraals abound. Lee does not wish to have kraals near him, and the king does not permit any to be made in his neighbourhood. Most of the hunters, he says, make a great deal of money, but spend their money as fast as they get it, saying, ‘There is more ivory where this came from.’ Lee himself was careful. His place, he says, is very healthy, and it has got so good a name that in unhealthy times people stay about here, and it has been like a town, so that he opened a store. He is trying peaches, apricots, and pomegranates. Potatoes grow well here, and he is seldom without vegetables. He is trying several wild fruits. He has always water in the spruit close by, and waters by hand. He showed me a small wild grape. “Lee tells me that a lion may often be stopped by throwing your hat at him, when you may have time to shoot. He says an elephant gun should never be longer than 27 inches (25 is better), nor weigh over 9 lbs. He shoots 8 drams of powder, and an 8 to the lb. ball. The recoil is avoided by the barrel being strong, and nearly as thick at muzzle as at breech. His clothing in hunting is as light as possible; veldt schoen, and he says not even a shirt if he could help it. He carries needles and thread in his hat. “For trading with the Matabele he recommends white, blue, and, I think, red beads. Selampore is much liked, or strips of coloured calico. Beads, he says, seem going out, and printed calico being preferred. The Matabele country, he says, was formerly under a queen. There were, I think, other queens before. An old man has told him the traditions, which he possesses. A famine caused the people to break up; then Kafirs came and conquered the country. Mosilikatze came next, and conquered these first Kafirs. Makobi’s were Mungwato people, but the old inhabitants of the Matabele country were a distinct race with a distinct language. The Bushmen have nothing to do with either. They seem an altogether different race, speaking a different language, and seem, Lee says, to be scattered all over the country of South Africa, a race apart from the regular inhabitants, and having no connexion with them.