The Southern Gates of Mashonaland.

Manawatu Herald, 20 February 1892, Page 3

The Southern Gates of Mashonaland.

'■ V ■ » ' , ; (COOTI»yED,) ; , Rhodes' Drift, a crossing over the Crocodile River above the month of the bhashi, lies in the route of mails and travellers between Tali and Pretoria. Grossing here is facilitated by a " point/ The Drift has this year been occupied by the police,' but as travellers via Rhodes' Drift, pass through Tuli, it is hardly one of ttie gateways at present being considered. The remaining entrances to the country lie eastward of those already mentioned. Crossing the Shashj by Fort Tuli, a road ol nearly fifty miles. which skirts the corner made by the junction of the Crocodile and Shrshi, brings the traveller to Maasabi's Drift on the Crocodile — Maasabi being the name of the local petty chief or headman. Thia road is in some places of ex*, eeeding beauty, especially in the, winter, at which season it was this year cut by pioneering party under Captain W. A. Barnett, in whose party the writer had the good fortune to be numbered. , Valleys and gorges of breast high 'grass, tall wavering palms, and cati, dense, green bu?hes, and veteran trees, sometimes a glimpse of the broad curving, river, flanked by a distant mountain chain, afforded a feast to the eye, almost sensual in its intoxicating reality. At one point a road had to be cut round one side of a cliff, that looked down ob the bhastii River. The road was out out of a steep incline, and was close to the edge of a perpendicular wall of rook, which rose up from the river forty or fifty feet in height ; and it was by the greatest good fortune that the waggons did not slide over, and meet with a dire disaster. About eight or nine miles from \Massabi's Drift we suddenly emerge from a forest of Mapani trees and there lie stretched before us inile3 of grand open country. It is the basin of the Limpopo. From our feet to the plain below are terraces and steps of hard rock of volcanic appearance. The horizon on the right is bounded by mountains forty or perhaps fifty miles away. Three miles off through the plain flows " that mighty Limpopo." On the left the country is broken up into gorges, for most part arid and bare, . but showing in places the position of dry water-courses by the lines of trees and thiok undergrowth. Here and there over the plain are abrupt hills, rooky and treeless, except for the solitary baobab trees. From the south Massabi's Drift is reached from Pietersbnrg, in the Transvaal. But it is not a drift that has been much used thia year, and, the crossing is a matter of soinadifflculty until the dry sea,gon is well advanced.. The native location ;te perched v up in the hills, and as a citadel of de» fence against the dreaded Matabele tSpM»»,it is admirably situated. At thfr point the hills' are about a mile .from the river. All along the part . of the Crocodile with which we are dealing runs a but slightly broken chain of granite hills, massive and abrupt, affording homes for those of ths) Banyai natives, an industrous and honest raoe, who are employed in rearing sheep and cattle, and in growing mealies, millet, v Eafir corn, pumpkins, and melons on the rich itrips of flat land in along the river. Middle Drift, fourand-twenty miles Iron* Mass is the next gateway we > come to as we proceed eastward.; ■waichis only interesting as -being fairly often made use of by hunters «nd "up country" traders. -This spot possessing no natural defensive advantages—the granite hills lie a a few., miles from * the river the Company's police eraoted here a serviceable, though small, earthern fort, and mounted -a maxim gun. The fort which commands the drift. ia capable of containing sufficient men to prevent any hostile crossing being made: and the bold front , which was shown here, when a body of Boers began to cross with hostile intent, was an important feature in the Company's resolute action, which oombined with the firm and friendly conduct of President Kruger, has thia yea* prevented probably onoe and, for all any collision .between Dutch and English elements, in the aspiration for sovereignty over any part of the large country now passing under the general name of Mashonaland. Still following our eastward course, a four mild journey brings us to Ihe Umzingwani River, one of the : fairest of fair rivers, whose waters would be insulted by a comparison with crystal 1 To one of the Company's poßtriders it will probably be remembered for many a long day. , Not far off he passed a long, terrible. night* in the branches of a small and fragile thorn tree. If he looked be!ow he saw two pairs of glowing hungry 4yea. A lion and a lioness kepi guard beneath the tree Springing? upon hit^ horse the lion had. btonghiit-to the ground. By seme miracle the rider was shot forward, and wtfU hit escape to the tree, whither his terrible enemies, forsaking Ihe bowe, followed him. It was. -aottiH well ~ after sunrise* thai the lions finally left him, and he decended and tramped to the Main Drift, from he had started the previous TOj/nfenty weary miles, v\C (To be Concluded.)