Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/477

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
The Makalaka and West Matabele Countries.
407

fire, and the men proceed eagerly to devour the half roasted meat, convinced that in swallowing it in this semi-raw condition they are acquiring the strength and courage that will equip them for their undertaking.

The European settlement on the Tati was surrounded by low hills, partly formed of ferruginous mica, quartz, and granite, some being isolated mounds, whilst others were portions of the slope of the river-valley. I made excursions to them in all directions, although I was warned to be on my guard against the lions that haunted the neighbourhood.

On arriving at the settlement I found that Pit Jacobs, like Mr. Brown, was away from home. He had gone elephant-hunting with one of his sons.

I went to the hills next day and saw numbers of pits, some fifty feet deep, that had been made by the diggers in their search for gold; and on one hill to the north, contiguous to the slope of the Tati valley, I found another ruin, consisting of the remains of a wall that formed a rampart round the hill-top, joined on to a second wall three times its size that ran round the next hill a little lower down. It was over three feet thick, and, like what I had previously seen, made of stones, blocks of iron mica, piled together without cement. On the inside it could be seen how the erection was made of oblong lumps of various dimensions, but outside, probably with some view to symmetry and decoration, there had been inserted double rows of stone hewn into a kind of tile, and placed obliquely one row at right angles to the other. Each inclosure had an entrance facing the north, that of the largest being protected by the wall on the right projecting out-