“Well, after this little experience I thought that I would settle down a bit, so I entered upon a venture with a man who, being of a speculative mind, had conceived the idea of running a store at Pretoria upon strictly cash principles.  The arrangement was that I should find the capital and he the experience.  Our partnership was not of a long duration.  The Boers refused to pay cash, and at the end of four months my partner had the capital and I had the experience.  After this I came to the conclusion that store-keeping was not in my line, and having four hundred pounds left, I sent my boy Harry to a school in Natal, and buying an outfit with what remained of the money, started upon a big trip.

“This time I determined to go further afield than I had ever been before; so I took a passage for a few pounds in a trading brig that ran between Durban and Delagoa Bay.  From Delagoa Bay I marched inland accompanied by twenty porters, with the idea of striking up north, towards the Limpopo, and keeping parallel to the coast, but at a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles from it.  For the first twenty days of our journey we suffered a good deal from fever, that is, my men did, for I think that I am fever proof.  Also I was hard put to it to keep the camp in meat, for although the country proved to be very sparsely populated, there was but little game about.  Indeed, during all that time I hardly killed anything larger than a waterbuck, and, as you know, waterbuck’s flesh is not very appetising food.  On the twentieth day, however, we came to the banks of a largish river, the Gonooroo it was called.  This I crossed, and then struck inland towards a great range of mountains, the blue crests of which we could see lying on the distant heavens like a shadow, a continuation, as I believe, of the Drakensberg range that skirts the coast of Natal.  From this main range a great spur shoots out some fifty miles or so towards the coast, ending abruptly in one tremendous peak.  This spur I discovered separated the territories of two chiefs named Nala and Wambe, Wambe’s territory being to the north, and Nala’s to the south.  Nala ruled a tribe of bastard Zulus called the Butiana, and Wambe a much larger tribe, called the Matuku, which presents marked Bantu characteristics.  For instance, they have doors and verandahs to their huts, work skins perfectly, and wear a waistcloth and not a moocha.  At this time the Butiana were more or less subject to the Matuku, having been surprised by them some twenty years before and mercilessly slaughtered down.  The tribe was now recovering itself, however, and as you may imagine, it did not love the Matuku.