On January 6th they reached the kraal of Sitanda, head chief of the Manica country. "We found the old fellow a slight-built old Kafir, with an astute thin-featured face, sitting outside his hut with about a dozen cronies. When his people first come up to him to report any news, they roll on their backs in the dust before him, and subsequently, when talking to him, lie down on their sides and rub one shoulder in the dust at the conclusion of every sentence."
The Kafukwe country looking unpromising for elephants, Selous then resolved to go north to the Mashukulumbwe country, but this was prevented by the breakdown of Owen, who became seriously ill with fever. A few days later, after hunting lechwes in a swamp, Selous himself became ill, and for a fortnight both the travellers experienced all the trials of malarial fever. Sitanda was of course delighted, and hoped they would soon die and he could annex all their trade goods. He, in fact, refused them all help in the way of food and porters in the manner usual to a savage who thinks he has white men in his power. The chief had given orders to all his people not to help the unfortunate invalids, no matter what payment was offered. Finally, poor Selous was reduced to "buying," for 320 loaded cartridges, one Kafir boy from a Portuguese. "The Portuguese told me I must watch him well in the daytime, and tie him up at night; however, I explained to him, through one of my boys, that, although I had bought him, I did not want to keep him for a slave, and that if he would carry for me as far as the Zambesi, he might go where he liked afterwards, or continue working with me for wages."
On January 24th Selous and Owen left this "accursed spot where we had spent eighteen miserable days." Ill and weak they staggered south, and five days later "the slave" ran away with a valuable breechloading elephant-gun. This, however, was recovered, but not the whole stock of Martini-Henry cartridges and corn which was essential to existence.
Thoroughly worn out, they reached the Zambesi at last on February 18th. No game had fallen to their rifles, as both were too ill to hunt.
After getting more provisions and carriers from Mendonca the party struck south, but after April 1st Owen was so weak that he had to be carried. Selous, however, improved a little when he reached the healthier country, but was still weak and unsuccessful in what little hunting he did. Moreover, the Banyais carrying Owen struck work, so Selous decided to leave him in charge of his faithful Basuto servant Franz and himself to push on to the waggons at Inyati and to send back help to his friend. On April 17th, he bade good-bye to Owen, and reached Inyati on May 4th, sending seven men to the Gweo, where Owen rested, and they eventually brought him out safely to the Matabele country.
After this unfortunate trip Selous was much depressed in mind, feeling that the whole country south of the Zambesi was played out for the trader and the hunter. Writing to his mother from Tati (May 28th, 1878), he expresses all his gloomy anticipations—doubtless the after effects of fever from which he had not yet recovered. "I am afraid that if I ever get home again you will find me much changed for the worse in temper and disposition. Continual never-ending misfortune in small matters and the failure of every speculation has changed me from a tolerably light-hearted fellow into a morose sad-tempered man. It is all very well to say that one can but do his best and that sort of thing, but in this world a man's merit and worth are measured solely according to his success and by no other standard. During the last year almost everybody has been ruined, and all the smaller traders sold up. Next year I am going to try a new country to the north of Ovampoland in Southwestern Africa. Things cannot be worse there than they are here, and from all I can learn probably much better. If there is nothing to be done there, I am sure I don't know what I shall do, but think of trying the Western States of North America. To try farming in this country with the luck against one would never do, for there is not one but twenty diseases to which all sorts of live stock are subject; all of them unknown in America and Australia."
Selous was far from well after this trying trip, and it took him two months to recover from its effects, so it was not till August that he set off again, after getting permission from Lobengula, to hunt in the Mashuna country, where he hoped to join his friends Clarkson, Cross, and Wood, who had gone north in the previous June.
On August 20th he left Inyati, in company with Mr. Goulden (Clarkson's partner), and trekked north. On the 30th he reached the Gwenia, where he found the old Boer hunter Jan Viljoen and his family. Here he had some sport with sable antelopes, and moved on the next day and reached the Umniati on September 6th, and on September 8th the Gwazan, where he shot a bull sable. After crossing the Sweswe, where he found the Neros, well-known Griqua elephant-hunters, he heard that his friends were on the Umfule river, two days north. Here he learnt that Clarkson and Wood had killed eight bull elephants in one day, September 8th; so was anxious to join them as soon as possible after this exciting piece of news.
On reaching the encampment of his friends he heard they were away on the Hanyane river, so he at once decided to follow them. Next day Selous killed a sable bull and met his friends close to the scene of the elephant slaughter of the previous Sunday. Clarkson and Wood had already killed forty elephants, and had to record the death of Quabeet, Wood's head Kafir, by a tuskless bull elephant. Selous gives some particulars of this unhappy event in a letter to his mother (December 25th, 1878): "Mr. Clarkson came across a troop of elephants and commenced shooting at them. Whilst killing one he heard another screaming terrifically, and galloped in that direction but saw nothing. In the evening Quabeet was missing, but no one thought anything could have happened to him except that he had lost himself. On the second day, however, as he did not turn up, Clarkson bethought him of the continuous screaming he had heard, and remembered to have seen a gigantic tuskless bull turn out by himself, whose spoor he resolved to follow the next morning. This he did, and soon found the place where the elephant had chased a man; there he found Quabeet's gun, and near it the odds and ends of skin he had worn round his waist and finally what remained of Quabeet. The poor fellow had been torn into three pieces. The elephant must have held him down with his foot and then torn him asunder with his trunk."
On September 14th the party found a herd of cow elephants and shot six, and on September 17th they all went north-east to the mahobo-hobo forests which lie between the Umsengasi and Hanyane rivers to look for elephants. The same evening they found two old bulls near the Umbila river. Selous quickly killed three bulls and a cow. "The fourth I tackled," he says, "cost me six bullets and gave me a smart chase, for my horse was now dead beat. I only got away at all by the skin of my teeth as, although the infuriated animal whilst charging trumpeted all the time like a railway engine, I could not get my tired horse out of a canter until he was close upon me, and I firmly believe that had he not been so badly wounded he would have caught me. I know the shrill screaming sounded unpleasantly near."