The forest scenery was grand and impressive in its solitude; sometimes we had great difficulty in getting our animals through the thick undergrowth; the trees were rich in colour, red and light green, equal to any of our autumnal tints, out of which now and again rose granite boulders. The crossing of the River Mwairari, a fine tributary of the Sabi, gave us a little trouble; it has a fine volume of water with occasional rapids, waterfalls, and high rocks, and we had to follow its right bank for several miles before we could get our animals across; the river bed was luxuriant in tall pampas grass and patches of papyrus. On the second afternoon after leaving Chiburwe we sighted the Sabi River, having gone miles out of our way; it is a really magnificent stream even here so far inland, and is navigable now for canoes very little below where we struck it. In ancient times it must have been navigable for larger craft, for all African rivers are silting up. There is little doubt but that the ancient builders of the ruins in Mashonaland, the forts and towns between the Zambesi and the Limpopo, utilised this stream as their road to and from the coast; and as the country again is opened out it may still be found useful as a waterway for small craft. Where we struck the Sabi it is a rapid river, flowing through a gorge and with a rocky bed; there are no marshes here, but fertile-looking slopes leading down to it, which appeared to us to promise well for the future agriculturists who settle on its banks, though the rainfall, which takes place only in summer, and for the space of only four months, will be a drawback to cereals. Now these slopes are entirely deserted, and about here we saw no villages, nor natives, nor paths, for days, doubtless owing to the raids of Gungunyana and his Shangans from across the stream. There is no doubt about it, the world is not full yet. In Mashonaland there exist tens of thousands of acres of fertile land entirely unoccupied. Thanks probably to the Matabele raids, the population is here exceedingly scanty, and when one travels through the long-deserted stretches of country, healthy, well watered, and capable of growing anything, which still exist between the Zambesi and the Limpopo, one cannot help thinking that those who complain of the world being too full, and that there is no opening for colonisation, are a century or two before their time.