BANKS OF THE CHOBE.

193

When we tried to enter, the water always became so deep that we were fain to desist. We concluded that we had come to the banks of the river we were in search of, so we directed our course to some trees which appeared in the south, in order to get a bed and a view of the adjacent locality. Having shot a leche, and made a glorious fire, we got a good cup of tea and had a comfortable night. While collecting wood that evening, I found a bird's nest consisting of live leaves sewn together with threads of the spider's web. Nothing could exceed the airiness of this pretty contrivance; the threads had been pushed through small punctures and thickened to resemble a knot. I unfortunately lost it. This was the second nest I had seen resembling that of the tailor-bird of India.

Next morning, by climbing the highest trees, we could see a fine large sheet of water, but surrounded on all sides by the same impenetrable belt of reeds. This is the broad part of the River Chobe, and is called Zabesa. Two tree-covered islands seemed to be much nearer to the water than the shore on which we were, so we made an attempt to get to them first. It was not the reeds alone we had to pass through; a peculiar serrated grass, which at certain angles cut the hands like a razor, was mingled with the reed, and the climbing convolvulus, with stalks which felt as strong as whipcord, bound the mass together. We felt like pigmies in it, and often the only way we could get on was by both of us leaning against a part and bending it down till we could stand upon it. The perspiration streamed off our bodies, and as the sun rose high, there being no ventilation among the reeds, the heat was stifling, and the water, which was up to the knees, felt agreeably refreshing. After some hours' toil we reached one of the islands. Here we met an old friend, the bramble-bush. My strong moleskins were quite worn through at the knees, and the leather trowsers of my companion were torn and his legs bleeding. Tearing my handkerchief in two, I tied the pieces round my knees, and then encountered another difficulty. We were still forty or fifty yards from the clear water, but now we were opposed by great masses of papyrus, which are like palms in miniature, eight or ten feet high, and an inch and a half in diameter. These were laced together by twining convolvulus, so strongly that the weight of both of us could not make way into

N

the clear water. At last we fortunately found a passage prepared by a hippopotamus. Eager as soon as we reached the island to look along the vista to clear water, I stepped in and found it took me at once up to the neck.

Returning nearly worn out, we proceeded up the bank of the Chobe till we came to the point of departure of the branch Sanshureh; we then went in the opposite direction, or down the Chobe, though from the highest trees we could see nothing but one vast expanse of reed, with here and there a tree on the islands. This was a hard day's work; and when we came to a deserted Bayeiye hut on an ant-hill, not a bit of wood or any thing else could be got for a fire except the grass and sticks of the dwelling itself. I dreaded the "Tampans," so common in all old huts; but outside of it we had thousands of musquitoes, and cold dew began to be deposited, so we were fain to crawl beneath its shelter. We were close to the reeds, and could listen to the strange sounds which are often heard there. By day I had seen watersnakes putting up their heads and swimming about. There were great numbers of otters (Lutra inunguis, F. Cuvier), which have made little spoors all over the plains in search of the fishes, among the tall grass of these flooded prairies; curious birds, too, jerked and wriggled among these reedy masses, and we heard human-like voices and unearthly sounds, with splash, guggle, jupp, as if rare fun were going on in their uncouth haunts. At one time something came near us, making a splashing like that of a canoe or hippopotamus; thinking it to be the Makololo, we got up, listened, and shouted; then discharged a gun several times; but the noise continued without intermission for an hour. After a damp, cold night we set to, early in the morning, at our work of exploring again, but left the pontoon in order to lighten our labor. The ant-hills are here very high, some thirty feet, and of a base so broad that trees grow on them; while the lands, annually flooded, bear nothing but grass. From one of these anthills we discovered an inlet to the Chobe; and, having gone back

for the pontoon, we launched ourselves on a deep river, here from eighty to one hundred yards wide. I gave my companion strict injunctions to stick by the pontoon in case a hippopotamus should look at us; nor was this caution unnecessary, for one came up at our side and made a desperate plunge off. We had passed over

RETURN TO LINYANTI.

195

him. The wave he made caused the pontoon to glide quickly away from him.

We paddled on from midday till sunset. There was nothing but a wall of reed on each bank, and we saw every prospect of spending a supperless night in our float; but just as the short twilight of these parts was commencing, we perceived on the north bank the village of Moremi, one of the Makololo, whose acquaintance I had made on our former visit, and who was now located on the island Mahonta (lat. 17° 58′ S., long. 24° 6′ E.). The villagers looked as we may suppose people do who see a ghost, and in their figurative way of speaking said, "He has dropped among us from the clouds, yet came riding on the back of a hippopotamus! We Makololo thought no one could cross the Chobe without our knowledge, but here he drops among us like a bird."

Next day we returned in canoes across the flooded lands, and found that, in our absence, the men had allowed the cattle to wander into a very small patch of wood to the west containing the tsetse; this carelessness cost me ten fine large oxen. After remaining a few days, some of the head men of the Makololo came down from Linyanti, with a large party of Barotse, to take us across the river. This they did in fine style, swimming and diving among the oxen more like alligators than men, and taking the wagons to pieces and carrying them across on a number of canoes lashed together. We were now among friends; so going about thirty miles to the north, in order to avoid the still flooded lands on the north of the Chobe, we turned westward toward Linyanti (lat. 18° 17' 20" S., long. 23° 50′ 9′′ E.), where we arrived on the 23d of May, 1853. This is the capital town of the Makololo, and only a short distance from our wagon-stand of 1851 (lat. 18° 20' S., long. 23° 50′ E.).

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THE COURT HERALD.

CHAPTER IX.

Reception at Linyanti.-The court Herald.—Sekeletu obtains the Chieftainship from his Sister.-Mpepe's Plot.-Slave-trading Mambari.-Their sudden Flight. -Sekeletu narrowly escapes Assassination.-Execution of Mpepe.-The Courts of Law.-Mode of trying Offenses.-Sekeletu's Reason for not learning to read the Bible.-The Disposition made of the Wives of a deceased Chief.-Makololo Women. They work but little.-Employ Serfs.-Their Drink, Dress, and Ornaments.-Public Religious Services in the Kotla.-Unfavorable Associations of the place.-Native Doctors.-Proposals to teach the Makololo to read.-Sekeletu's Present.-Reason for accepting it.—Trading in Ivory.—Accidental Fire.-Presents for Sekeletu.-Two Breeds of native Cattle.-Ornamenting the Cattle.-The Women and the Looking-glass.-Mode of preparing the Skins of Oxen for Mantles and for Shields.-Throwing the Spear.

THE whole population of Linyanti, numbering between six and seven thousand souls, turned out en masse to see the wagons in motion. They had never witnessed the phenomenon before, we having on the former occasion departed by night. Sekeletu, now in power, received us in what is considered royal style, setting before us a great number of pots of boyaloa, the beer of the country. These were brought by women, and each bearer takes a good draught of the beer when she sets it down, by way of "tasting," to show that there is no poison.

The court herald, an old man who occupied the post also in Sebituane's time, stood up, and after some antics, such as leaping, and shouting at the top of his voice, roared out some adulatory sentences, as, "Don't I see the white man? Don't I see the comrade of Sebituane? Don't I see the father of Sekeletu ?"— "We want sleep."-" Give your son sleep, my lord,” etc., etc. The perquisites of this man are the heads of all the cattle slaughtered by the chief, and he even takes a share of the tribute before. it is distributed and taken out of the kotla. He is expected to utter all the proclamations, call assemblies, keep the kotla clean, and the fire burning every evening, and when a person is executed in public he drags away the body.

I found Sekeletu a young man of eighteen years of age, of

SEKELETU OBTAINS CHIEFTAINSHIP.

197 that dark yellow or coffee-and-milk color, of which the Makololo are so proud, because it distinguishes them considerably from the black tribes on the rivers. He is about five feet seven in height, and neither so good looking nor of so much ability as his father was, but is equally friendly to the English. Sebituane installed his daughter Mamochisáne into the chieftainship long before his death, but, with all his acuteness, the idea of her having a husband who should not be her lord did not seem to enter his mind. He wished to make her his successor, probably in imitation of some of the negro tribes with whom he had come into contact ; but, being of the Bechuana race, he could not look upon the husband except as the woman's lord; so he told her all the men were hers-she might take any one, but ought to keep none. In fact, he thought she might do with the men what he could do with the women; but these men had other wives; and, according to a saying in the country, "the tongues of women can not be governed," they made her miserable by their remarks. One man whom she chose was even called her wife, and her son the child of Mamochisane's wife; but the arrangement was so distasteful to Mamochisane herself that, as soon as Sebituane died, she said she never would consent to govern the Makololo so long as she had a brother living. Sekeletu, being afraid of another member of the family, Mpépe, who had pretensions to the chieftainship, urged his sister strongly to remain as she had always been, and allow him to support her authority by leading the Makololo when they went forth to war. Three days were spent in public discussion on the point. Mpepe insinuated that Sekeletu was not the lawful son of Sebituane, on account of his mother having been the wife of another chief before her marriage with Sebituane; Mamochisane, however, upheld Sekeletu's claims, and at last stood up in the assembly and addressed him with a womanly gush of tears: "I have been a chief only because my father wished it. I always would have preferred to be married and have a family like other women. You, Sekeletu, must be chief, and build up your father's house." This was a death-blow to the hopes of Mpepe.

As it will enable the reader to understand the social and political relations of these people, I will add a few more particulars respecting Mpepe. Sebituane, having no son to take the leader