When this letter reaches you, then you will know that it comes from a man who very much desires to visit you, but who, being a man of the people, cannot get loose to make such a long journey. Therefore he must now be satisfied with writing a letter to carry his regards to the son of the late King of the Matabele, our old friend Umzilikatse. When I say that I desire to see you, it is not to ask for anything, but to talk of something, and to tell Lo Bengula of the affairs and things of the world, because I know that there are many people who talk and tell about these matters, whilst there are but few who tell the truth. Now, when a man hears a thing wrong, it is worse than if he had never heard it at all. Now, I know that Lo Bengula has heard some things wrongly, and for this reason would I tell him the real truth. Now, you must have heard that the English--or as they are better known the Englishmen--took away our country, the Transvaal, or, as they say, annexed it. We then talked nicely for four years, and begged for our country. But no; when an Englishman once has your property in his hand, then is he like a monkey that has its hands full of pumpkin-seeds--if you don't beat him to death, he will never let go--and then all our nice talk for four years did not help us at all. Then the English commenced to arrest us because we were dissatisfied, and that caused the shooting and fighting. Then the English first found that it would be better to give us back our country. Now they are gone, and our country is free, and we will now once more live in friendship with Lo Bengula, as we lived in friendship with Umzilikatse, and such must be our friendship, that so long as there is one Boer and one Matabele living these two must remain friends. On this account do I wish to see Lo Bengula, and if I may live so long, and the country here become altogether settled, and _the stink which the English brought_ is first blown away altogether, then I will still ride so far to reach Lo Bengula, and if he still has this letter then he will hear the words from the mouth of the man who now must speak with the pen upon paper, and who, therefore, cannot so easily tell him everything. The man is a brother's child of the three brothers that formerly--now thirty-two years ago--were at Umzilikatse's, and then made the peace with him which holds to this day. He still remembers well when the first Boers, Franz Joubert, Jann Joubert, and Pieter Joubert, came there, and when they made the the peace which is so strong that the vile evil-doers were never able to destroy it, and never shall be able to destroy it as long as there shall be one Boer that lives and Lo Bengula also lives.