the day. Throughout the early morning, nothing could be more agreeable than the odour of the white cinque-foiled blossoms of the mopondo shrubs. In the evening we started off again, and travelled all night and some part of the next day until we came to the edge of the Gashuma Flat. Here we were obliged to pause for a time, because the recent rains had transformed the meadows into perfect swamps. The grass, known by the natives as matumbe, was in many places six or seven feet high, so that we did not see a great quantity of game. Whilst we were halting, we were overtaken by six Marutse who had hastened after us to bring some buffalo horns of mine that Westbeech had accidentally left behind at Sesheke, as well as an elephant’s tusk weighing 25 lbs. They followed us as far as Panda ma Tenka, under the excuse that they wanted to get some lucifer-matches for Sepopo, but their real motive was to ascertain whether Kapella had joined our party.
Ever since I had become aware of Kapella’s circumstances I had endeavoured to keep him supplied with corn from my own and Westbeech’s store, and he had left the Leshumo valley, going on ahead of us towards the Gashuma Flat, where we again fell in with him and with Moia. Amongst their attendants I recognized one of the boatmen who had behaved so badly to me after starting from Sesheke.
As not a single head of game had been shot by one of our party for some days, the arrival of a goat, which Bradshaw sent us from Panda ma Tenka, was a very agreeable surprise. Another night’s journey took us beyond the tsetse district,
