Tuli, Zimbabwe

Tuli is a village in the province of Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe. It is located about 90 km west of Beitbridge on the eastern bank of the Shashe River. The village grew around Fort Tuli which was the first settlement built by the Pioneer Column in July 1890 at the place known as Selous Camp and used by Frederick Selous as a base for his hunting expeditions. The village is mainly a police post and associated housing.

The village can be accessed from Gwanda town via Guyu and Hwali, or from Beitbridge via Nottingham and Shashi Irrigation Scheme, although the latter road is in very poor condition

History

Tuli was the first point at which the pioneer column, and many subsequent expeditions entered into Matabeleland and onward north to Salisbury (now Harare), the capital of Rhodesia as the country was then known. Tuli was the first location north of the Limpopo/Shashe rivers where a 'European' style building was erected - the BSA Police Station was a wooden modular style Victorian building, brought from the UK and erected to house members of the BSA Police who monitored the river crossing just south of the building's location. Until this time a large Fort (Fort Tuli) had existed on the southern bank of the Shashe where oxen and horses were rested prior to undertaking the river crossing. In the 1970s this building was re-located from its original site and erected at the site of the old, and now obliterated, Fort Tuli. It was used to house artifacts and items if historic...
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