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Ngazi Pass
Located in
Zimbabwe :: Masvingo
:: Masvingo
Category:
Scenic Routes :: Mountain Pass
The burial places for local chiefs to the east of the Providential pass are Wadana and Ruvhure. Wadana river valley or Ngazi pass is where Fredrick Selous and the Pioneer column spent an anxious night after crossing through the Lowveld.
Excerpt from FC Selous: "On August 10th we laagered at the foot of Providential Pass near Fern Spruit. That evening Father Hartmann went out for a stroll and lost himself. Several parties went out to look for him but without success. He turned up bright and smiling the next morning, having spent the night lying hidden under some bushes half a mile from the laager, under the impression that our fires, which he could see, were the fires of a Matabele. We spent a very restless night remaining on full alert, as it was the perfect site for an ambush. August 13th. We, 'B' Troop, after a cup of coffee each, left the laager just before dawn, crossed Fern Spruit, and began the ascent of the pass just as the sky was beginning to light up in the east. The bush was very thick and was interspersed with big trees, so hard slogging was the order of the day. We had hardly cut a quarter of a mile when we heard, by the cracking of whips behind us, that the column was on the move, and that we would soon have it treading on our heels. However we managed to keep ahead of it. About eleven o'clock the Colonel rode up. He congratulated us on the progress we were making, and asked me when we had had breakfast. I told him that we hadn't had it up till then and that unless he halted the column for a spell I didn't see how we were going to get any. He rode back and halted the column and we got our long delayed breakfast. As soon as we had swallowed it we pushed on again. At about three o'clock I got a note from the Colonel telling me to halt at the first flat place that I came to, and clear space for the laager. As luck would have it we were just then at the very place that would answer, so we cleared it. I then marked out a pool in Fern Spruit, which was running alongside our road, for drinking water, and told my crowd that if they wanted to bathe they could bathe in the pool below it, which they did. However some busybody told the Colonel that they were bathing in the drinking-water pool; then the band began to play. The next morning we were off again at dawn, and at 8am we emerged from the pass on to the high veld. The first things that caught our eyes were two large white patches that looked like snow, but which turned out to be nitre, if I remember right. Our relief on leaving the hot steamy low veld, where for months we had seldom been able to see for more than two hundred yards round us, and arriving on the open veld with a cool, invigorating breeze blowing, may be imagined. We laagered about a mile from the pass, and a spot was selected on which to build a fort to guard the pass. The fort was to be named after Her Majesty Queen Victoria." (quoted from diaries of FC Selous published in Rhodesiana).
| Address : | Masvingo, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe |
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