There We Came Upon
So Many Interlacing Branches Of The River, And Were Obliged To Drag Them
Through Such Masses
Of tangled aquatic plants, that we half drowned them,
and were at last obliged to leave them somewhat exhausted at
Naliele.
They excited the unbounded admiration of my men by their knowledge
of the different kinds of plants, which, as they remarked,
"the animals had never before seen in their own country;"
and when the donkeys indulged in their music, they startled the inhabitants
more than if they had been lions. We never rode them, nor yet the horse
which had been given by the bishop, for fear of hurting them by any work.
Although the Makololo were so confiding, the reader must not imagine
that they would be so to every individual who might visit them.
Much of my influence depended upon the good name given me by the Bakwains,
and that I secured only through a long course of tolerably good conduct.
No one ever gains much influence in this country without
purity and uprightness. The acts of a stranger are keenly scrutinized
by both young and old, and seldom is the judgment pronounced,
even by the heathen, unfair or uncharitable. I have heard women
speaking in admiration of a white man because he was pure,
and never was guilty of any secret immorality. Had he been,
they would have known it, and, untutored heathen though they be,
would have despised him in consequence. Secret vice becomes known
throughout the tribe; and while one, unacquainted with the language,
may imagine a peccadillo to be hidden, it is as patent to all
as it would be in London had he a placard on his back.
27TH OCTOBER, 1855. The first continuous rain of the season
commenced during the night, the wind being from the N.E., as it always was
on like occasions at Kolobeng. The rainy season was thus begun,
and I made ready to go. The mother of Sekeletu prepared a bag of ground-nuts,
by frying them in cream with a little salt, as a sort of sandwiches
for my journey. This is considered food fit for a chief.
Others ground the maize from my own garden into meal, and Sekeletu pointed out
Sekwebu and Kanyata as the persons who should head the party
intended to form my company. Sekwebu had been captured by the Matebele
when a little boy, and the tribe in which he was a captive had migrated
to the country near Tete; he had traveled along both banks of the Zambesi
several times, and was intimately acquainted with the dialects spoken there.
I found him to be a person of great prudence and sound judgment,
and his subsequent loss at the Mauritius has been, ever since,
a source of sincere regret. He at once recommended our keeping
well away from the river, on account of the tsetse and rocky country,
assigning also as a reason for it that the Leeambye beyond the falls
turns round to the N.N.E. Mamire, who had married the mother of Sekeletu,
on coming to bid me farewell before starting, said, "You are now going
among people who can not be trusted because we have used them badly;
but you go with a different message from any they ever heard before,
and Jesus will be with you and help you, though among enemies;
and if he carries you safely, and brings you and Ma Robert back again,
I shall say he has bestowed a great favor upon me.
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