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The arrival of a white man in the Mashona country was evidently a quite unique event, exciting the utmost curiosity in the minds of the inhabitants indeed, I subsequently learned that such a thing had never happened since the memorable visit of my friend Major Henderson and his partner, Van Raalte, consequently it was only a very few of the older men who had ever beheld a white man before; for as I rode along at a foot-pace, with Piet respectfully walking in my rear, the whole way was lined on either side by thousands of men, women, and children, who had turned out for the express purpose of beholding such an astonishing spectacle, this, it appeared, being rendered all the more extraordinary by the fact that horses were unknown to the Mashonas, and not one of them, save the half-dozen or so elders above-mentioned, had ever so much as heard of a mounted man!

Of course the fat was in the fire at once; we were set upon, seized, bound hand and foot with reins, and flung just anyhow into a hut. "That occurred during the afternoon. About an hour before sunset they came and dragged out Van Raalte, and carried him away, leaving me where I was; and shortly afterward I heard a man start screaming as I wish never again to hear a man scream, so long as I live.

All this while, however, certain congregations refused to accept the compromise of 1838; and a large number, headed by a preacher named Van Raalte, in order to obtain freedom of worship, emigrated to Michigan to form the nucleus of a flourishing Dutch colony. The accession of William II coincided with a period of political unrest, not only in Holland but throughout Europe.

Of course we at once threw everything overboard and loaded our wagon afresh with gold, as much of it as the blessed thing would carry or the oxen drag. And then what must that born idiot Van Raalte do but quarrel with one of the indunas about some trumpery thing, and slash the man across the face with his sjambok!

Yet I did nothing of the kind, for when I stretched myself out upon my cartel I found my thoughts dwelling upon my mysterious visitor, who I felt sure could be none other than Machenga himself, stolen surreptitiously away from the mysterious rites of the fetish house in the hope of cajoling a rifle out of me; and I began to wonder whether the two white men to whom he had referred as having visited Mashonaland many moons ago one only of whom went out of the country again could by any chance have been my friend Henderson and his Boer partner, Van Raalte.

It is true that I possessed no personal knowledge of the Mashonas, but I had an idea that, in essentials, they would probably resemble pretty closely the Zulus, of whom I knew something; and, if so, I could understand not only their treatment of Van Raalte and of my friend Henderson too, as Van Raalte's companion and partner but also that it might be quite possible for a white man possessed of a certain amount of tact and a tolerably comprehensive knowledge of the nature of the South African savage to enter their country and leave it again in safety.

In the privacy of my own room that night, after I had parted from the major, I gave my most careful consideration to the suggestion which he had thrown out; and despite the gruesome fate of the Dutchman, Van Raalte, at the hands of the Mashonas, which my host had hinted at rather than described, the project decidedly appealed to me.

They took me to a place about a quarter of a mile away, and showed me something which they told me was all that remained of Van Raalte. I will not attempt to describe to you what I saw, but well, let it pass!

But, unfortunately for me, I had a partner in the expedition, a Boer named Van Raalte, who was cursed with an outrageously quarrelsome disposition and a vile temper, especially where natives were concerned; and it was he who spoiled everything.