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Updated: June 6, 2025
The Prices went for a time to Shoshong, hoping to join the Matabele Mission, but finally laboured among the Bakwena, under the chief Sechele. The Kuruman station itself during this time presented a scene of unabated activity. A revision of the New Testament was in progress, the youngest Miss Moffat, then the only child at home, was working hard at schools and classes, and Mr.
I explained the impossibility of my complying with his wish, even though my principles as an Englishman had not stood in the way, by referring to an instance in which Sechele had gone with his whole force to punish an under-chief without my knowledge.
Great numbers of the tribes formerly living under the Boers have taken refuge under his sway, and he is now greater in power than he was before the attack on Kolobeng. Having parted with Sechele, we skirted along the Kalahari Desert, and sometimes within its borders, giving the Boers a wide berth.
It was in vain to explain that I would inculcate peace between them that Sebituane had been a father to him and Sechele, and was as anxious to see me as he, Lechulatebe, had been. He offered to give me as much ivory as I needed without going to that chief; but when I refused to take any, he unwillingly consented to give me guides.
Sechele had become so obnoxious to the Boers that, though anxious to accompany me in my journey, he dared not trust himself among them. This did not arise from the crime of cattle-stealing; for that crime, so common among the Caffres, was never charged against his tribe, nor, indeed, against any Bechuana tribe. It is, in fact, unknown in the country, except during actual warfare.
Sekomi, the chief of the Bamangwato, was acquainted with a route which he kept carefully to himself, because the Lake country abounded in ivory, and he drew large quantities thence periodically at but small cost to himself. Sechele, who valued highly every thing European, and was always fully alive to his own interest, was naturally anxious to get a share of that inviting field.
I believe that in this way have arisen tales of their inability to count more than ten, as was asserted of the Bechuanas about the very time when Sechele's father counted out one thousand head of cattle as a beginning of the stock of his young son. In the present case, Sechele, knowing every question put to his people, asked me how they ought to answer. My reply was, "Tell the truth."
The natives, under Sechele, defended themselves till the approach of night enabled them to flee to the mountains; and having in that defence killed a number of the enemy, the very first ever slain in this country by Bechuanas, I received the credit of having taught the tribe to kill Boers!
He also gave some elephants' tusks, worth 30 Pounds, for another medicine which was to make him invulnerable to musket balls. As I uniformly recommended that these things should be tested by experiment, a calf was anointed with the charm and tied to a tree. It proved decisive, and Sechele remarked it was "pleasanter to be deceived than undeceived."
All the friends of the divorced wives became the opponents of our religion. The attendance at school and church diminished to very few besides the chief's own family. They all treated us still with respectful kindness, but to Sechele himself they said things which, as he often remarked, had they ventured on in former times, would have cost them their lives.
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