Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 21, 2025
In this region no men dwell: except the wretched "Balala," naked and weaponless fugitives from the Tonga and other tribes, whose villages had been destroyed in war, and who had escaped to lead a life in the desert compared with which death by the spear would have been merciful.
Suddenly, however, they turned and came towards me in a most threatening manner, so much so that my Balala companion climbed into a tree and I laid myself prone behind an ant-hill, covering the leading animal with my rifle. They, stood at a distance of about eighty yards. I fired, hitting the leader just where the neck sank into the chest; he fell dead.
As a matter of fact this had often happened, so much so, that by the time the expedition reached the Limpopo, nearly a fourth of the men were either weaponless, or else were armed only with light assegais. After crossing the Limpopo, the expedition trended slightly to the westward, towards the hilly country where, according to the Balala, many of the cattle of the Makalakas were to be found.
Once across the Limpopo, they knew they could easily reach the Makalaka country, where, doubtless, loot abounded. They knew all about this from the Balala, whom they from time to time captured and questioned. None of these could, however, give any information as to where the copper ore had come from. In the meantime, game was plentiful, although somewhat difficult to capture.
The unfortunate balala "the people who are dead" those miserable fugitives from savage justice, or, more often, remnants of clans scattered in war, often perished in veld conflagrations. They wandered, naked and weaponless, in the neutral areas lying between the territories of the different tribes, preferring the mercy of the lion and the hyena to that of man.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking