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 ant-hills 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 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. 17d 58' S., long. 24d 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. 18d 17' 20" S., long. 23d 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.
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