“Had supper on Australian meat in Fairbairn’s waggon. Rain came on, and I heard showers during the night. When we left the king, he chaffed John, and said he looked weak, as if he was hungry. Last night John had asked for meat, and he said he had no beef and his sheep were poor. He seems really not to be killing oxen at present. Fairbairn has told Nina that we are eating tinned fish. Fish is held in utter abomination by these people, and Nina said her brother ought not to let us eat it. Fairbairn says they used, when they wanted meat, to rig up a dummy fishing-rod, and march off with it, taking care to pass in sight of the king, and the moment he suspected fishing, he would send them a large piece of meat. “One sees all shades of colour in these people. The Makalakas are much darker as a rule than the Matabele, who are usually coppery red or sometimes yellow. The king, however, is black, and, I believe, about as black as any of his race, and far more so than most. He deserves his epithet of ‘black king.’ The dogs are a great source of fear at present. They are constantly attacking people, and lately half, if not altogether, killed an induna. Fairbairn says the king showed him his own trousers torn the other day, as proof that even their master was not exempt. “_January 23d._--Wretched rainy and gusty morning. Nina in Fairbairn’s waggon, as she was also a good deal yesterday. She is very fond of him, as of other white men; and is said to wish to marry a certain white trader here, who has left for a time--hoping, I believe, that she may be married when he returns. She can’t marry till the king takes his wife from whom the future king is to be born. His present wives have nothing to do with it. “John Lee’s waggon arrived to-day, to my great pleasure. I had just returned from visiting the king, whom John and I had found standing at the entrance of his kraal in a Mackintosh coat. Dick and Jacob joined us, and the case of Jacob was discussed, Dick also urging the hardship of his own dismissal, in which the king seems partly to agree, and says it would be better not to leave him in _his_ country, but where we can try the case with our own laws. At length the king went to his hut, saying this case would take a long time, and it was not a day to discuss it. Certainly the weather was against a law-suit being carried on in the open air. In the evening I went again to the king. Lee was sitting on the front-box of his waggon, and went over my case with him, and thus I got a decision quickly. The king said his decision had been that I was to take Dick _and_ Jacob, but I had refused to do this, so now I must pay the wages of the boy, as he considered Jacob, having been brought by Dick, was under his protection. I sent for them, and paid the money to the king, who promised to keep it for Jacob as far as he could, though he said if they left the country he must then give it up. Supper again with Fairbairn.