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222 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
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message to the expedition, forbidding the road-making. The messenger of
the king met the British at Tuli, but the men picked by Rhodes were not
of a temper to be checked or frightÂened away, and the road was pushed
ahead as fast as possible through the thick brush and woods of the
lowland, where the peril from attack was most to be dreaded. Dr.
Jameson rode in the van with forty of the best mounted men as an advance
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guard.
Selous led the pioneers and marked the roadway. FinÂally, on the 13 th
of August, 1890, the road-makers came to the great plateau of
Mashonaland, through an easy mountain pass, and a heavy weight was
lifted from the minds of the leaders, for on this open plateau hostile
attacks were no longer to be dreaded, and a few hundred well armed and
mounted men might well defy a horde of marching Matabeles. It is
probable that this daring advance would not have been made unmolested,
if Lobengula's attention had not been artfully distracted by a feint of
entry in another quarter made by a body of Bechuanaland police on the
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