was a domain that included pretty well the whole of South and South-central Africa; and that the population, through the medium of the natives on the coast, kept up an active trade with the Dutch and Portuguese. It was said that Portuguese missionaries from the east had worked amongst the inhabitants, and traditions from the same source represent that the towns were for the most part built near the gold-diggings, and that in the immediate neighbourhood of Monomotapa alone there had been no less than 3000 mines. Discoveries had now been made near the saltpan of some stone fragments of columns and mouldings, evidently bearing the marks of human labour; and as the distance between this spot and Cape Town corresponded accurately with what the records stated was the distance of Monomotapa from Cape Town, the inference was generally accepted that the true site of the ancient town had been revealed.
As the place was only a few miles to the north of my route, I was unwilling to pass it without a visit. It was near the Vaal, and nominally in the Transvaal Republic; but although I found an old Dutch-woman living there with her daughters, I learnt that it was virtually under the authority of the Korannas at Mamusa, a power which they retained until the beginning of 1879. It was just at the southern corner of a triangular tract of country that had its base towards Mamusa and the Harts River, and was claimed by the Batlapin chiefs, Gassibone and Mankuruane, at that time both independent, by old
