The Selous now left for Essexvale, the farm of his company, and took up their quarters in a rough wood and mud two-roomed house which was to be their home until the wire-wove bungalow, which had been sent out from England in sections, should arrive and be erected. It was whilst travelling to Essexvale that Selous met his old friend, Mr. Helm, the missionary, who by his long residence amongst the Matabele was thoroughly conversant with native views. Mr. Helm said that on the whole the natives had accepted the new regime, but that they were highly incensed at the confiscation of their cattle by the Chartered Company. The natives at first were told that after all the cattle had been branded with the Company's mark and handed back to the natives, only the king's cattle would be confiscated. "This promise," says Selous, "was made under the belief that nearly all the cattle in Matabeleland had belonged to the king and that the private owners had been but few in number." This was a great mistake, for nearly every chief induna and men of any position had possessed large herds of their own. At Bulawayo Selous found a ruined kraal, since it had been burnt and deserted by the Matabele after their defeat in 1893. The site of the new town had been marked out by the settlers, who had camped close by, and a general air of hope and prosperity hung over the scene of the new British town that was shortly to arise from the ashes of the past. No difficulties with the natives were apprehended, and farms and town-sites were at a high value. No one, in fact, dreamed that in a few months the whole country would be overwhelmed in the calamity of the rinderpest--a cattle disease that swept from Abyssinia to the Cape and killed in its course nearly the whole stock of cattle, as well as many fine species of game, such as buffalo, eland, koodoo, etc. Added to this the Matabele again rose, burnt the farms, and in many cases murdered all the new settlers and carried destruction throughout the whole country north of the Limpopo. To add to these horrors a bad drought and an unusual plague of locusts rendered farming and transport practically impossible. There were some 70,000 cattle at this time in the hands of the natives, and a final settlement was made by which the Chartered Company retained two-fifths, giving the remaining three-fifths to the natives, a settlement by which for the time being the natives appeared satisfied. All through the autumn and winter of 1895 life passed quietly at Essexvale. The new house arrived, and was erected just before the rains set in on a high position eighty feet above the Ingnaima river. The Company bought 1200 head of cattle which were distributed amongst the natives. Five thousand gum-trees were raised from seed and planted on some forty acres of ploughed land, the other products including maize and fruit trees of various kinds.