Next day we crossed two rivers, tributaries of the Tokwe, and after a prosperous ride of ten miles reached Sindito’s kraal, called Sekatu, the inhabitants of which took us for a Matabele impi, and would not come down till Mashah had screamed to them that we were no rogues, but honest men. We gave the chief a cup of tea, which he detested, and as soon as politeness permitted he said he had had enough. He returned the compliment by giving us a calabash of good beer, which we drank with pleasure. Sekatu was rather a nice village, on a hill covered with thick jungle, amongst which grew in profusion cucumbers, about six inches long, of a rich orange colour, with thorns outside and with a delicious bright green pulp inside. They are the Cucumis metuliferus, specimens of which may be seen in the museum at Kew Gardens. We had seen these before, and looked upon them as poisonous, until our natives partook of them and gave us confidence. Ever afterwards, as long as they were in season, we indulged freely in this delicious fruit, and voted it the best we had come across in Mashonaland. The next day we halted for half an hour at a village called Imiridzi, where we acquired a bag of bark fibre, made by knitting the twine with two sticks for knitting-needles. These articles seemed very popular in this village, and nearly everyone was engaged in their production. Midday found us at a very large kraal, the chief place in the dominions of a powerful Makalanga chief called Gutu. Gona is the name of the kraal, and it is completely buried between two high granite kopjes. At the entrance to it some tall trees are completely hung with provisions packed away in their long sausage-like bundles—bags of locusts, caterpillars, sweet potatoes, and other delicacies. These trees we henceforth called ‘larder trees,’ and found them at nearly every village. The inhabitants of Gona were unusually rich in savage ornaments, and we annexed many snuff-boxes, knives, and other oddments. The chief was unfortunately away, but his representative brought us fine pots of beer and milk, and we made a hearty meal despite the dense and rather unsavoury mass of natives which surrounded us during its consumption. They have a plentiful growth of tobacco plants near Gutu’s kraal, and large fields of rice, in which the women were just then busily engaged in making the broad furrows; they have very prettily carved doors to their huts, and many of the men wear sandals on their feet. Altogether Gona struck us as one of the most prosperous kraals we had seen in the country.