We only accomplished seven miles this first day, owing to the difficulties of progression, and in the afternoon found ourselves encamped by a wretched village called Chekatu. Here they had no cattle and no milk to sell us owing to Matabele raids. The chief, Matzaire by name, came to visit us with his iron sceptre in his hand, which made us think of the rods of iron with which certain Israelitish kings are stated to have ruled. We climbed amongst the huts before sundown and came across an old hag busily engaged in shaving the heads of her younger sisters, cutting their woolly locks into all sorts of odd shapes as fancy or fashion suggested. She refused our most [[255]]tempting offers to part with her razor, and it was not till some time afterwards that we were able to obtain a specimen of this Makalanga ironcraft.
KNITTED BAG
Next day we crossed two rivers, tributaries of the Tokwe, and after a prosperous ride of ten miles reached Sindito’s kraal, called Sekatu, the inhabitants of which took us for a Matabele impi, and would not come down till Mashah had screamed to them that we were no rogues, but honest men. We gave the chief a cup of tea, which he detested, and as soon as politeness permitted he said he had had enough. He returned the compliment by giving us a calabash of good beer, which we drank with pleasure. Sekatu was rather a nice village, on a hill covered with thick jungle, amongst which grew in profusion cucumbers, about six inches long, of a rich orange colour, with thorns outside and with a delicious bright green pulp inside. They are the Cucumis metuliferus, specimens [[256]]of which may be seen in the museum at Kew Gardens. We had seen these before, and looked upon them as poisonous, until our natives partook of them and gave us confidence. Ever afterwards, as long as they were in season, we indulged freely in this delicious fruit, and voted it the best we had come across in Mashonaland.
LARDER TREE
REED SNUFF-BOXES AND GREASE-HOLDER
The next day we halted for half an hour at a village called Imiridzi, where we acquired a bag of bark fibre, made by knitting the twine with two sticks for knitting-needles. These articles seemed very popular in this village, and nearly everyone was engaged [[257]]in their production. Midday found us at a very large kraal, the chief place in the dominions of a powerful Makalanga chief called Gutu. Gona is the name of the kraal, and it is completely buried between two high granite kopjes. At the entrance to it some tall trees are completely hung with provisions packed [[258]]away in their long sausage-like bundles—bags of locusts, caterpillars, sweet potatoes, and other delicacies. These trees we henceforth called ‘larder trees,’ and found them at nearly every village. The inhabitants of Gona were unusually rich in savage ornaments, and we annexed many snuff-boxes, knives, and other oddments. The chief was unfortunately away, but his representative brought us fine pots of beer and milk, and we made a hearty meal despite the dense and rather unsavoury mass of natives which surrounded us during its consumption. They have a plentiful growth of tobacco plants near Gutu’s kraal, and large fields of rice, in which the women were just then busily engaged in making the broad furrows; they have very prettily carved doors to their huts, and many of the men wear sandals on their feet. Altogether Gona struck us as one of the most prosperous kraals we had seen in the country.
As we journeyed eastwards the appearance of the people was certainly wilder. We here saw their heads decorated with curious erections of woven grass, fastened into their hair and reaching an elevation of a foot, like miniature Eiffel towers on their heads;[1] and at a village called Muchienda we acquired two quaint-shaped straw hats with ostrich feathers sticking in the top, quite different to anything we had seen elsewhere. As we approached this village a long string of natives passed us on their way to hunt; on their heads they carried bark cases full of nets, [[259]]which they stretch across the valleys and drive the game into them. Muchienda was a lovely village by a rushing stream full of rocks, which formed a little waterfall; the stream was shaded by magnificent timber, and a background of lovely mountains made us think Muchienda an ideal spot, at which we would willingly have tarried longer.