the seed-stalk, so that the massive ear hangs down.  The grain was heaped up on wooden stages, and so was a variety of other products.  The men are skilful hunters, and kill elephants and buffaloes with long heavy spears.  We halted a few minutes on the morning of the 12th July, opposite the narrow island of Sikakoa, which has a village on its lower end.  We were here told that Moselekatse’s chief town is a month’s distance from this place.  They had heard, moreover, that the English had come to Moselekatse, and told him it was wrong to kill men; and he had replied that he was born to kill people, but would drop the habit; and, since the English came, he had sent out his men, not to kill as of yore, but to collect tribute of cloth and ivory.  This report referred to the arrival of the Rev. R. Moffat, of Kuruman, who, we afterwards found, had established a mission.  The statement is interesting as showing that, though imperfectly expressed, the purport of the missionaries’ teaching had travelled, in a short time, over 300 miles, and we know not how far the knowledge of the English operations on the coast spread inland.

When abreast of the high wooded island Kalabi we came in contact with one of the game-laws of the country, which has come down from the most ancient times.  An old buffalo crossed the path a few yards in front of us; our guide threw his small spear at its hip, and it was going off scarcely hurt, when three rifle balls knocked it over.  “It is mine,” said the guide.  He had wounded it first, and the established native game-law is that the animal belongs to the man who first draws blood; the two legs on one side, by the same law, belonged to us for killing it.  This beast was very old, blind of one eye, and scabby; the horns, mere stumps, not a foot long, must have atrophied, when by age he lost the strength distinctive of his sex; some eighteen or twenty inches of horn could not well be worn down by mere rubbing against the trees.  We saw many buffaloes next day, standing quietly amidst a thick thorn-jungle, through which we were passing.  They often stood until we were within fifty or a hundred yards of them.

On the 14th July we left the river at the mountain-range, which, lying north-east and south-west across the river, forms the Kariba gorge.  Near the upper end of the Kariba rapids, the stream Sanyati enters from the south, and is reported to have Moselekatse’s principal cattle-posts at its sources; our route went round the end of the mountains, and we encamped beside the village of the generous chief Moloi, who brought us three immense baskets of fine mapira meal, ten fowls, and two pots of beer.  On receiving a present in return, he rose, and, with a few dancing gestures, said or sang, “Motota, Motota, Motota,” which our men translated into “thanks.”  He had visited Moselekatse a few months before our arrival, and saw the English missionaries, living in their wagons.  “They told Moselekatse,”