On the morning of November 4 we saw as we looked out of the carriage
that the country was a continuation of that of the previous day. It was
still as level, apparently, as a billiard table. We were drawing near
to Bulawayo--were, in fact, due there about 9 a.m. We had been led to
expect a more tropical vegetation, but as yet, though we were only sixty
miles off, we saw no signs of it, but rather a return to the thorn bush
of the Karroo and Southern Bechuanaland. One variation we noted, the
rocky kopje is more frequent. These curious hill-heaps of rock are
remnants of the primeval tableland that rose above the present face of
the country from 100 to 300 feet. The sight of these curious kopjes
deepened the idea that the seat of the "Killer," Lo Bengula, would be
found on a high eminence, protected by a cluster of these kopjes, but we
looked long in vain for such a cluster of hills. Even the sight of a
lordly tree would be welcomed, for the tame landscape was growing
monotonous. The absence of scenery incidents did not diminish our
friendly sympathies towards Rhodesia, and we made the most of what was
actually visible, the blue sky, the dwarf trees, the low green herbage
which dotted the ground in the midst of wide expanses of tawdiness, the
burnt grass tussocks, which we knew would in a few days be covered as
with a carpet of green. We see the land just before the season changes,
and signs of vivifying spring approaching are abundant. A few days ago
the first rains set in. The last two nights have witnessed a wonderful
exhibition of electric display in the heavens, and severe thunderstorms
have followed. In another fortnight it is said the plains will have
become like a vast garden.
At thirty-five miles from Bulawayo we came to the Matoppo Siding. The
engineers stopped for breakfast at a restaurant and boarding house!
which was a grass hut 20 feet long. Near by a diminutive zinc hut was
called "General Store." Several tarpaulins sheltered various heaps of
miscellanea. There a Matabele servant of a fur trader informed us that
Lo Bengula was still alive, near the Zambesi, happy with abundance of
mealies and cattle, and that any white man approaching his hiding-place
would be surely killed, but that if any large number of white men went
near him, he would again fly.
At the 1335th mile from Cape Town an accident to the special train ahead
of us retarded us four hours. The engine, tender, water tank, and bogie
car ran off the track. No one was hurt, fortunately, and by 1 p.m. we
were all under way again, though the first lunch we were to have eaten
together at Bulawayo was necessarily changed to the first dinner.
At 2:30 we were on the alert to catch a first view of Bulawayo, and at
2:55 p.m. a few stray gleams of white, seen through the thorn bush, were
pointed out to us as the capital of Matabeleland. We had passed the
famous Matoppo Hills to the right of us, but, excepting for their
connection with the late war, there was nothing interesting in them.
They consist of a series of these rocky kopjes of no great height, lying
close together, mere wrecks of the crest of a great land wave, terrible
enough when behind each rocky boulder and crevice a rifleman lies
hidden, but peaceful now that the war is over, and the white man has
made himself an irremovable home in the land.