[1] M’, which looks so mysterious in all African books, is supposed to express that the first syllable may be pronounced either um or mu; there are four correct ways of pronouncing the name in question, Umtali or Mutare, Umtare or Mutali. The English have adopted the first and the Portuguese the second. [↑]
[2] Vide [Chap. VII]. [↑]
[4] Vide illustration, [ch. X]. [↑]
CHAPTER III
CAMP LIFE AND WORK AT ZIMBABWE
Our camp was pitched on slightly rising ground about 200 yards from the large circular ruin at Zimbabwe, and was for the space of two months a busy centre of life and work in the midst of the wilderness. There were our two waggons, in which we slept; hard by was erected what our men called an Indian terrace, a construction of grass and sticks in which we ate, and which my wife decorated with the flowers gathered around us—the brilliant red spokes of the flowering aloes, which grew in magnificent fiery clusters all over the rocks, the yellow everlasting (Helipterum incanum), which grew in profusion in a neighbouring swamp, wreaths of the pink bignonia, festoons of which decorated the ruins and the neighbouring kraal. Besides these she had the red flowers of the Indian shot (Canna indica), which was found in abundance on the hill fortress, fronds of the Osmunda regalis and tree fern, the white silky flowers of the sugar tree (Protea mellifera), and many others at her disposal, a wealth of floral decoration which no conservatory at home could supply. [[61]]
MRS. THEODORE BENT