When Tracks Lead to Trouble

The Tuli Circle was handed to Rhodesia by Khama in the late 1800s. Originally the resting place for hundreds of pioneers, hunters, prospectors and traders, the Tuli Circle served as the place they waited patiently for Lobengula, King of the Matabele, to grant them permission to cross the sandy Shashi into the country now known as Zimbabwe. The small makeshift town, lasting a few years, had formed around a post office, a jail, a hotel and a few trading stores in the late 1800s. The Circle, an unusual bubble shape that was originally part of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), was given to these brave men and women as a place to rest and regroup before proceeding north-east to the rich gold fields and hunting grounds that lay on the other side of the Shashi.

And as we searched along the riverbank for sign of elephant activity, we constantly stumbled onto artifacts that bore testimony to those great days. Martini-Henry cartridge cases, medicine bottles, ammunition tins and fragments of Royal Doulton china lay strewn about the riverbank.

I was accompanied on that particular trip by an old friend, whose culinary skills surpassed those of the finest of camp chefs I have known. Monty, who was born and raised