“_September 10th._--Early breakfast, and then out with the Kafirs to shoot. One carried my ten-bore, one led the dogs, which I am taking out to help to hunt. Went in a north-easterly direction, through very fine picturesque kopjes, with blue distant ranges; the grass long and yellow, and the trees grouped prettily; some kopjes with craggy tops, and partially covered with evergreens, others showing more of their stony formation. A good many trees are covered with bunches of cream-coloured blossoms something like ‘May,’ but have no leaves. They remind me a little of ‘snow-balls.’ Here and there we see a tree whose leaves are brown or scarlet with decay. In places where the grass has been burnt, fresh green blades are springing. There are numbers of little burns here with moist oozy banks, and in many places with water in them, that I suppose find their way to the Shashani. We had to go through a burning patch of country. The flames appeared orange-red, and presented a rather formidable phalanx, writhing in the wind, and with wreaths of dun-coloured smoke rising from them, which indeed filled the air with lighter clouds of the same colour, here and there the wreaths appearing bluish, whilst a dusky haze hung over the horizon. As the flames devoured the yellow grass, they left a blackened track behind. The trees, however, seem to escape; some in blossom, some in autumnal tints, but the greater portion leafless.... One of the boys who came to the waggon had a charm of bone suspended from his breast. It consisted of four pieces of bone, carved and strung together. By them he professes to foretell what luck will befall a hunter or any one else. They are unstrung and shaken in the hand, and then thrown on the ground. The person going to hunt must spit on the ground, and as he throws he must say, ‘My gun! may I shoot something.’ The bones, as they are hung, appear about the size and shape of a swallow-tail butterfly. I like the Matabele better than I did. They are good-natured and jovial, and seem to understand a joke. There were great firings and noises at the kraal in the evening, in honour, it appears, of a man returned from the diamond-fields. “_September 11th._--Fair, pleasant, windy day. Eight oxen and a note from Fairbairn, who says I have missed a dance at Gubuleweyo. The king says I am to come and make haste. A letter from Gubuleweyo to forward to the Tati excites more exorbitant demands for payment. Two boys must take it, and each have a pannikin of powder. Manyami said he must see the powder before he would send the boys. Great noises at the kraal again to-night.