We struck our camp at Lutilo rather late in the afternoon, and only got as far as a river called the ’Nyatzetse, the crossing of which involved the unloading of our animals. On the way we passed through two villages, where the inhabitants were busily engaged in building huts, for it was evidently a new encampment, and in making beer, which was too new to drink; the land around was being freshly turned up for their fields, after the approved Makalanga fashion. First they clear a space of jungle, leaving the larger trees, and pile up the brushwood round the roots, then they set fire to the heaps, and when it is consumed the tree is killed, and more easy to cut down. The next day brought us at a very early hour to the site of the Matindela ruins, which was to be our halting-place for a few days. The ruins certainly are fine, but far inferior to those of Zimbabwe; they are perched on the top of a bare granite rock about 150 feet high, a most admirable strategical position. [30] In the centre of them we pitched our tents for our welcome halt of three days, and made ourselves as comfortable as rain would permit, for it fell in torrents here even though it was the dry season. The term ‘Matindela’ means ‘guinea-fowl,’ quantities of which birds are found around here, as indeed they are in most parts of this country. We were now only twenty miles from the Sabi River, and the country around was almost deserted, ruined villages crowned most of the heights, and the deserted fields and devastation in every direction were lamentable to behold. There were evidences, too, of a fairly recent raid, in which the poor Makalangas had been driven out of their homes and probably carried into slavery. By common consent the two great Zulu chiefs, Lobengula and Gungunyana, whose embassy visited England last year, consider the Sabi as their respective boundary for marauding expeditions. On this occasion I believe Gungunyana and his Shangans were to blame, who, finding that Lobengula was cut off by the Chartered Company from this part of his district, had made bold to cross the Sabi and raid on the western side, bringing destruction into the Makalanga homes, which in former years had here been thought very secure, being, as they were, far from Lobengula and just out of Gungunyana’s recognised district. The Makalangas have the greatest horror of the Shangans, who dwell across the Sabi, and do Gungunyana’s bidding. One day at Matindela we brought home a specimen of a curious fruit which hangs from the trees, eighteen inches to two feet long, like thick German sausages; it has beans inside, and we asked Mashah if it was good to eat: ‘No Makalangas eat umvebe,’ as he called it, ‘only the Shangans and baboons.’