Mashonaland.

Manawatu Herald, 26 April 1892, Page 3

Mashonaland.

The Premier of the Cape Colony, Mr Rhodes, lately made a trip through the newly-a6quired territory of Mashonaland, and a member of the Cape Parliament, Mr De Waal, went with him. At present the country has to be entered by the river Pungwe in Portuguese territory on the east coast. They travelled up the river seventy miles, and then took to the land. The river is a tidal one, about a thousand yards wide at the mouth, the tide goes up seventy miles, and half-way up that distance, the river is as wide as the Thames at London Bridge. From the river to the highlands a regular fever belt has to be traversed,' the temperature being as high, as 120 to* 180 in the sun and steaming as a hothouse. After passing this, also a distance of seventy miles, fine open country is reached, which is described as simply one huge zoological garden. ••» Never before have I seen such abundance of wild animals," said Mr De Waal, " they have been left all these ages undisturbed by man, and the result is that for the sportsman no such region exists in the world. Great herds of buffaloes can be seen within gunshot of the road. You fire at a great buffalo bull, and the moment the report of your rifle is heard you see you are in the midst of animals of nil Undj.

Wild pigs jump up to the right, to the left herds of koodoos rush' away into the more distant glades, and the whole forest seems suddenly instinct, with life. You go, a, little farther,' and you come upon frosh spoors of herds of elephants, then you come upon giraffes, and herds of quaggers and antelopes, and every description, of animal' which abounds in'fJoiith Africa." . , .. . Then the dark forest is encouri tered and then the low country, which lies at the foot of the table-land, arid further on the country belonging to the South African Company is reached, the scene of the gold-min-ing industry. Particulars are given of 21 gold reefs already registered. " Mashonaland is the finest country God ever made," said one who has been hunting the country for the last twenty years. Mr De Waal says " It is a land which to anyone who knows anything about the Yeldt, is the richest in South Africa — a country abounding in all natural wealth, fertile, sparsely populated, but full of everything which is necessary for a great colony.*' \_