On August 14 we started on our journey. It was a lovely morning, and our progress was very slow, for our cavalcade was so heterogeneous—my wife and I on horseback, Messrs. Swan and King with a horse between them, three white men to look after the donkeys, and Mashah and his Makalangas to carry what the donkeys could not. We straggled terribly at first, for the donkeys were obstinate and their pack-saddles unsteady, the natives were fresh and anxious to get along, so we had to call for frequent halts to readjust ourselves, which gave us ample opportunity for looking around. The country here is sown broadcast with strange granite rocks; one group had formed themselves into an extraordinary doorway, two columns on either side about sixty feet high, with a gigantic boulder resting on the top of them for the lintel. Like the structures of a giant race, these strange rocks rise out of the thick vegetation in all directions. Presently, as we were experiencing some little difficulty in getting our raw cavalcade across a stream, a Makalanga joined us who had been born without hands. To his left stump had been attached, by means of a leather thong, the claw of a bird; with the assistance of this he ate some food we gave him with marvellous dexterity, and fired his gun. He was a bright cheery individual, evidently greatly respected by his more gifted comrades. We only accomplished seven miles this first day, owing to the difficulties of progression, and in the afternoon found ourselves encamped by a wretched village called Chekatu. Here they had no cattle and no milk to sell us owing to Matabele raids. The chief, Matzaire by name, came to visit us with his iron sceptre in his hand, which made us think of the rods of iron with which certain Israelitish kings are stated to have ruled. We climbed amongst the huts before sundown and came across an old hag busily engaged in shaving the heads of her younger sisters, cutting their woolly locks into all sorts of odd shapes as fancy or fashion suggested. She refused our most tempting offers to part with her razor, and it was not till some time afterwards that we were able to obtain a specimen of this Makalanga ironcraft.