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 escaping to carry the news to Shoshong. Without delay Khame and Khamane, the king’s sons, set off to avenge the injury; they routed two companies of the Matabele without difficulty, but were almost overpowered by a third company which had been attracted to the scene by the sound of fire-arms, and although they killed some forty of their adversaries, they lost at least twenty of their own men, and had some difficulty in making a safe retreat to Shoshong. Encouraged by this temporary advantage the Matabele came on to the Francis Joseph Valley, and to the hills immediately overhanging Shoshong; they laid waste some fields, but had not the audacity to enter the Shoshon pass; after many endeavours to entice the Bamangwatos into the open plains, they were obliged to retire, and although they carried off with them a considerable quantity of cattle, Sekhomo started off in pursuit, and recovered it all within a fortnight.

As the result of all this the Bamangwatos rose in importance. They were manifestly establishing their superiority over the Matabele, hitherto regarded as the stoutest and most invincible of warriors, and the consequence was that numbers of Makalalas, Batalowtas, Mapaleng, Maownatlalas, and Baharutse, came as fugitives from the Matabele district and craved permission to settle on the Bamangwato heights.

But in order to convey a correct conception of the order of events, it is necessary to relate the proceedings of Matsheng, who, as I have