The greater part of the following day (September 30th) was spent in packing and arranging things for the walk to the Falls, and it was not till the day after this that the induna reappeared, now stating that he could not get bearers. The natives, it is likely enough, were afraid of fever on the Zambesi at this season, and did not want to go, but it afterwards appeared that the induna of the kraal and the headman sent by the king had made no proper efforts to obtain the staff required for the journey. The upshot of the matter was that the Zambesi had to be abandoned, and the traveller obtained instead permission from the king to go for a few weeks’ hunting into the country to the north-east, where good sport was likely to be had. Before starting on this expedition he wrote home from Inyati, on October 5th, as follows:-- “You will not be much surprised to hear that I have had to give up the Zambesi. I got here just in time to do it, if the carriers had been forthcoming, but the people in authority threw so many difficulties in my way, that I had to send back to the king, and so much valuable time has been lost that I have given up the expedition. I am, however, going a little way into the country with my waggon, and shall probably be a month or two before I am back again here. “There are three Englishmen living here, trading. Two of them, in whose house I am now writing, are very obliging to me. This is a mission station, but there is no missionary here now. It is the last post of white men in this part of the world. When you reach the Zambesi you come to the outposts of the Portuguese traders from the east coast, but between these points are no Europeans settled. The rain is beginning, though the regular rains have not set in yet. It is after the first heavy rains that fever begins to annoy people on the Zambesi, but I believe, generally, even then only slightly, but after the next downfall--when there is much rain and the rain is beginning to dry up, about January, February, and March--the really bad season sets in. However, I am now avoiding even the former risk, and where I am going I shall be so near here all the time that I can return almost when I choose. I don’t exactly know where I am going, but it will be somewhere in a north or north-easterly direction from here. “I hear that Cruickshank, my agent at Bamangwato, is now at the King’s Town, but I am three days’ journey from there, and he will shortly be returning to Bamangwato. Fairbairn, his agent at the King’s Town, will, however, in all probability, be there when I return, and here I am in good hands too, so that I have friends all along the road, and letters always come and go as surely, if more slowly, than where there is a regular post, for waggons are constantly coming and going, and everybody helps everybody else in this part of the world. I have been pressed into the service as postman myself before now. Only delays must be expected, and are often very vexatious.”