Meanwhile Khame had heard of his proceedings through some travelling Bamangwatos, and from the Masarwas and Madenassanas, who resided near the plateau, and Z., aware that his smuggling had been discovered, was in a state of great alarm lest he should be prohibited from returning to the south; for reasons already stated, he was even more afraid of falling into the hands of Lo Bengula, and as he was obliged to abandon his scheme of getting the rhinoceros, he hailed our arrival as a circumstance that might be turned to his advantage.
Poor Mayer was terribly altered since I saw him last; the ravages of fever in a few weeks had pulled him down so much that I hardly knew him. Several of Z.’s servants were also suffering from weakness which the fever had brought on, and he wished me to prescribe for them. I could only tell him that I had not a grain of medicine left, having given the last which I had bought of Bradshaw to Pit and Jan Mahura’s son; at the same time I instructed him that he would materially benefit the men’s muscles if he would make them rub their ankles with some of his brandy. It was then he told me that he had no brandy left, having sold everything except some spirits of wine. That, I replied, would answer the purpose just as well.
But Z. had no idea of employing his spirits of wine for any such beneficent object; he diluted his alcohol as freely as he dared with water, and took an early opportunity of selling it to my fellow-travellers, principally to Westbeech, for 33l. The atrocious stuff completely overpowered Westbeech, and Z. took advantage of his condition to induce him to purchase his team, thereby ensuring that it should not fall into Khame’s hands.
I am only too ready to draw a veil over the proceedings of the rest of that sojourn at Tamasetze; they are even now painful in the retrospect; suffice it to say, that they ended in an arrangement by which Z. was to be conveyed to the south as Westbeech’s guest. He seemed to rejoice in the recollection that although his expedition had not brought him any vast profit, at least it had entailed no serious loss.
Leaving Tamasetze on the 7th, we went on past the Tamafopa and Yoruah pools towards the most northerly of the Klamaklenyana springs, where a road branched off to the south-east to the Makalaka country. The deplorable effects of Z.’s alcohol extended beyond our stay at Tamasetze, and the man who drove the waggon in which I was riding remained so drunk that several times the vehicle was in danger of being overturned, and more than once I was obliged to take the reins, thus exposing myself in a way which in my condition of health proved very bad.
At the Yoruah pools Bradshaw had a relapse; Diamond and a waggon-driver fell ill; my own servant, Elephant, had an attack of dysentery, and two more of Westbeech’s people showed symptoms of fever; in consequence of such an amount of sickness we halted for nearly two days, an interval of which I took all the advantage I could to add to my store of natural curiosities. We did not reach the springs until the 12th, and started again the same evening. Game was very scarce on the plateau, obviously owing to the fact that the hollows in the woods were so full of rainwater that the animals had no occasion to resort to the springs near the roads.
As the result of my premature exposure I had a severe shivering fit next night, and to add to my misfortune our tipsy driver failed to get out of the way of a bough that protruded across the road, and the concussion was so severe that all the coleoptera that I had collected during the last five days were damaged, and many of them quite destroyed.
We had a toilsome march next day through a dense sandy underwood. In the night a herd of rhinoceroses and some elephants crossed our path, and shortly afterwards we came to a glade called Tamasanka, containing some pools that never dry up. The water in them was clear, but Westbeech told me that if kept in a vessel for two or three days it always begins to thicken. I had no opportunity of proving the fact for myself.
In the afternoon I for the first time saw a widow-bird (Vidua paradisea), a species of finch which is very common on the west coast; I also found fly-catchers, pyroles, small speckled-green woodpeckers, and the Vidua regia. As a general rule birds abounded more in the open parts of the pool plateau than in the densely wooded district where the ponds lay in small glades.
For the two succeeding days the track was so thickly overgrown with grass that we had some difficulty in determining our proper route. The servants, in investigating the path, were highly delighted at finding the half-eaten carcase of a giraffe that had probably been killed by lions.