But the greatest parody of all is at Sarmento itself, a Portuguese settlement on the banks of the Pungwe. Here two handsome coaches, made expressly in New Hampshire, in America, for the occasion, lie deserted near the Portuguese huts. They are richly painted with arabesques and pictures on the panels; ‘Pungwe route to Mashonaland’ is written thereon in letters of gold. The comfortable cushions inside are being moth-eaten, and the approaching rains will complete the ruin of these handsome but ill-fated vehicles. Meanwhile the Portuguese stand by and laugh at the discomfiture of their British rivals in the thirst for gold. Even the signboard, with ‘To Mashonaland,’ is in its place; and all this elaborate preparation for the pioneer route has been rendered abortive by that venomous little insect the tsetse-fly. In his zeal to carry out his contract, Major Johnson committed a great error and entailed an enormous amount of misery when he telegraphed that the Pungwe route was open, and circulated advertisements to that effect, giving dates and hours which were never carried out. Heaps of people, for the most part poor and impecunious, flocked to this entrance to their Eldorado, and after waiting without anything and in abject misery at Chimoia’s had to return to Mapanda’s, where the condition of affairs was desperate—people dying of fever, the doctor himself ill, and no food, for the Portuguese governor of Neves Ferreira, Colonel Madera, boycotted the English and forbade the natives to bring them provisions. Assistance was brought to them by Dr. Todd, of the Magicienne; but many died, and the rest, disappointed and penniless, had to return to Capetown.