Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/471

 surprised to find that the Lotriets, whom I had met at Henry’s Pan, had settled at Tati, and were living in some grass-huts.

All waggons on their way from the Bamangwato country to the Matabele are bound to stop at Tati for a change of bullocks, and most of the traders keep extra teams of their own there to avoid unnecessary delay. The Matabele had at one time possessed immense herds of cattle, plundered for the most part from their neighbours, but the Roi-water plague, which had been brought in from the south, had made such frightful ravages among them that the king had ordained and enforced the measure to check any further spread of the disease.

There is always a guard of Matabele troops stationed at Tati, who are supposed to have surveillance over the countries to the south-east; but as far as I could make out their chief business consisted in annoying every white man who arrived, and in arresting all Makalakas on their way back from the diamond-fields, and after administering a severe flogging, seizing their guns and ammunition in the name of the king.

At this time the Matabele kingdom was only second in power to any of the native tribes south of the Zambesi, and now, since the subjugation of the southern Zulus, it must rank as absolutely the most powerful of all. It is considerably more than 300 miles long, and from 250 to 300 miles broad. According to Mr. Mackenzie, Moselikatze, the founder of this extensive kingdom, was the son of Matshobane, a Zulu captain in Natal; he was taken prisoner by Chaka, the most powerful of the Zulu chiefs, who subsequently, when he Rh