Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/145

 to surmount. To add to our difficulties, the oxen began to be restive, and to get beyond control; and so violent was the jolting, that my barometer was ruined. It was not surprising that the journey occupied about three times as long as we had calculated; nor was it much consolation to perceive, from the fragments of broken waggons which we passed, that others before us had fared even worse than ourselves.

My attention was for a while diverted from my own affairs, by meeting a Batlapin carrying a leveret, and the “kiri” with which he had killed it. This is a very favourite weapon of both the Zulus and the Bechuanas. It is generally made of wood, but amongst the northern Bamangwato it is sometimes formed of rhinoceros horn; it varies from a foot to a yard in length, having at one end a knob, either plain or carved, as large as a hen’s egg, or occasionally as large as a man’s fist. In hand to hand conflicts it is a very effectual and deadly weapon, but it is chiefly used for hunting, and is hurled, by some tribes, with a marvellous precision. It was with the “kiri” that the Matabele Zulus dashed in the skulls of the male adult population of the rebel Makalaka villages.

The country now sank gradually toward the Harts River, and the valley lay broad and open, bounded on the far north by the N’Kaap, the rocky and wooded slope of the highland. The scenery at the coniluence of the rivers had always been described to me as pretty, but I found that the term was only