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 truders. It was just the excuse for a fight which the Matabele wanted; a regular scrimmage ensued, and two to one as they were, a kiri would inevitably very soon have descended on Z.’s head if Bradshaw and I had not interfered in time. We held our guns in our hands, but when the young rascals saw that we did not raise them, they struck their kiris upon the ground and broke out into a storm of abuse, which they were still continuing, when an old Matabele, his rank as a warrior indicated by his leather circlet covered by hair, made his appearance on the scene. Hearing what had transpired, he caught hold of a good stout bough of a tree, and laid it vigorously about the shoulders of the offenders. He treated them exactly like naughty little boys, and they, like little boys, crept back in disgrace, keeping their grumbling to themselves.

In the course of the afternoon we came to a village named Kambusa. It consisted only of about fifteen huts, and belonged to a man of the name of Tantje, whom Westbeech knew very well, so that we had no fear of meeting with any annoyance in it. Tantje’s residence had two enclosures, one of stakes round his hut, and another of thornbushes outside his fields. This was the last of the Makalaka villages we had to pass; five-and-twenty years ago they extended another hundred miles to the south, but now we were close to the boundary of the province, and before the evening we had crossed the existing frontier.

Upon the shore of the little river Ashangena, about 600 yards away from the road, Diamond drew my attention to a bush, beneath which he informed me that Mr. Frank Oates, an Englishman, had been