of falling into the hands of Lo Bengula, and as he was obliged to abandon his scheme of getting the rhinoceros, he hailed our arrival as a circumstance that might be turned to his advantage.
Poor Mayer was terribly altered since I saw him last; the ravages of fever in a few weeks had pulled him down so much that I hardly knew him. Several of Z.’s servants were also suffering from weakness which the fever had brought on, and he wished me to prescribe for them. I could only tell him that I had not a grain of medicine left, having given the last which I had bought of Bradshaw to Pit and Jan Mahura’s son; at the same time I instructed him that he would materially benefit the men’s muscles if he would make them rub their ankles with some of his brandy. It was then he told me that he had no brandy left, having sold everything except some spirits of wine. That, I replied, would answer the purpose just as well.
But Z. had no idea of employing his spirits of wine for any such beneficent object; he diluted his alcohol as freely as he dared with water, and took an early opportunity of selling it to my fellow-travellers, principally to Westbeech, for 33l. The atrocious stuff completely overpowered Westbeech, and Z. took advantage of his condition to induce him to purchase his team, thereby ensuring that it should not fall into Khame’s hands.
I am only too ready to draw a veil over the proceedings of the rest of that sojourn at Tamasetze; they are even now painful in the retrospect; suffice it to say, that they ended in an arrangement by which Z. was to be conveyed to the south as West-
