G. W. H. Knight-Bruce's travels through southern Africa in the 1880s and 1890s coincided with a period of intense economic development and imperial expansion. The missionary motives that brought Knight-Bruce to southern Africa operated in an often tense relation to the exploitative colonialism that attracted most popular attention. J. P. Fitzpatrick's Through Mashonaland with Pick and Pen (1892), the anonymous pamphlet With Mr Rhodes Through Mashonaland (1892), and Rose Blennerhasset and Lucy Sleeman's Adventures in Mashonaland by Two Hospital Nurses (1893) fed public interest in the region. Although Mashonaland, which formed part of Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), was created as a colony by the businessman Cecil Rhodes, it was formed as a colony by the efforts of missionaries. The discovery of gold increased the level of infiltration by hunters and prospectors, and Rhodes's eventual success lay in the way in which he channeled these isolated attempts at penetration. Bishop Knight-Bruce had affinities...