BUSHMAN DRAWING NEAR ’MTOKO’S KRAAL
Next morning, whilst we were packing for our start from ’Mtoko’s, I was informed of the existence of some Bushman drawings under an overhanging rock about half a mile from our camp. I hurried thither and took some hasty sketches of them. The rock is literally covered with these drawings in colours of red, yellow, and black, which had evidently eaten into the granite, so that the figures are preserved to [[334]]us. They represent all sorts of wild animals such as elephants, kudus, and cynocephalous apes; these are wonderfully well executed; the figures of warriors with poised spears and quivers of arrows are, however, grotesque. The most curious fact about them is finding these drawings so far north, and a close examination of this district will probably bring to light many more. The people who made these drawings inhabited all this district and down into Manicaland. Specimens, too, are found near Fort Salisbury; oddly enough, during our wanderings near Zimbabwe and the Sabi, we never saw any or heard of their existence.
After a ride of eight miles we reached the kraal of Kalimazondo, another son of the late ’Mtoko. It is just a circular collection of wattled huts, all joined together by a stockade. We alighted for a while here and sat in a hut, with a view to putting some leading questions to the chief concerning the state of the country. He told us that, in his opinion, his uncle the Mondoro was the rightful heir to the chiefdom, for his father, the old ’Mtoko, had wished it, but that his brother Bedapera had said: ‘I am a man, I wish to be chief.’ All the old indunas and the head men of the country were on the Mondoro’s side, and he had little doubt but that he would succeed in establishing his claim.
When approached on the subject of religion, Kalimazondo grew vague and uncommunicative. We let him know that we had seen the Mondoro, and knew [[335]]a great deal. To all this he replied: ‘I dare not tell you anything, or I should become deaf. I like my gun, and if I was to tell you anything it would be taken away, and I should be no man.’ Kalimazondo is a cunning man in his generation, and we saw that we should learn no more about this strange and primitive community than it had pleased the priest of the lion god to tell us.
Close to Kalimazondo’s kraal we passed the remains of the hedges or skerms which Mr. Selous and his followers had erected to protect their camp when on their visit to the old ’Mtoko, and we congratulated ourselves that it had not been our fate to be driven thus far from headquarters.
Next day we rode through an uninteresting waterless country, and encamped for the night by a stream which formed the southern border of ’Mtoko’s country. [[336]]