uana kingdoms, viz., from Griqualand West, from the Transvaal, and from the Orange Free State; the whole of these unite at Shoshong, whence they all branch off again, one to the north, towards the Zambesi, another to the north-east to the Matabele and Mashona countries, and another to the north-west, to the country of the western Bamangwatos and to the Damara country, so that it follows as a matter of necessity that the admittance of a traveller into Central Africa from the south depends upon his reception by Khame at Shoshone.
The valley of the Bamangwato highland is five or six miles wide, and overgrown with grass and bushwood; it is partly cultivated, and at its point of union with the Shoshong pass it is speckled over with some hundreds of thatched cylindrical huts, about twelve feet in diameter, and rarely more than seven feet in height; some of them overgrown with the rough dark foliage of the calabash-gourd.
Approaching the town from the south, we noticed three farmsteads and five detached brick houses about 600 yards before we entered the place. These houses were built with gables, and had much more of an European than of a Bamangwato aspect. We learnt that they were called “the white man’s quarters,” being occupied during part of the year by English merchants, who come to transact business with the natives, and, in years gone by, supplied provisions to the hunters, to be paid for on their return in ivory and ostrich-feathers. Amongst the
