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He also said that my young men might go and hunt elephants in company with his servants, and purchase goods with both the ivory and dried meat, in order that they might have something to take with them on their return to Sekeletu. The men were delighted with his liberality, and soon sixty or seventy of them set off to engage in this enterprise.
After a short reign of a few months she had risen in the assembly and "addressed her brother with a womanly gush of tears. 'I have been a chief only because my father wished it. I would always have preferred to be married and have a family like other women. You, Sekeletu, must be chief, and build up our father's house."
A maid-servant of Sekeletu, however, pronounced by the Makololo to be good-looking, was at this time sought in marriage by five young men. Sekeletu, happening to be at my wagon when one of these preferred his suit, very coolly ordered all five to stand in a row before the young woman, that she might make her choice.
I endeavored to bring the bull, in performance of a promise made to Sebituane before he died. Admiring a calf which we had with us, he proposed to give me a cow for it, which in the native estimation was offering three times its value. I presented it to him at once, and promised to bring him another and a better one. Sekeletu was much gratified by my attempt to keep my word given to his father.
This they do in large wooden mortars, the counterpart of which may be seen depicted on the Egyptian monuments.* Sekeletu added to this good supply of meal ten or twelve jars of honey, each of which contained about two gallons. Sekeletu also appropriated two cows to be milked for us every morning and evening.
Never was better meat than that of the ox Sekeletu sent, and infinitely above the flesh of all kinds of game is beef! A constant stream of visitors rolled in on us the day after our arrival. Several of them, who had suffered affliction during the Doctor's absence, seemed to be much affected on seeing him again. All were in low spirits. Sekeletu's leprosy brought troops of evils in its train.
Being then accompanied as far as this Fall by Sekeletu and 200 followers, his stay was necessarily short; and the two days there were employed in observations for fixing the geographical position of the place, and turning the showers, that at times sweep from the columns of vapour across the island, to account, in teaching the Makololo arboriculture, and making that garden from which the natives named the island; so that he did not visit the opposite sides of the cleft, nor see the wonderful course of the river beyond the Falls.
He then withdrew somewhere till all our party came up. Mpepe had given his own party to understand that he would cut down Sekeletu, either on their first meeting, or at the breaking up of their first conference. The former intention having been thus frustrated, he then determined to effect his purpose after their first interview. I happened to sit down between the two in the hut where they met.
He found that the princess had abdicated in favour of her brother Sekeletu, who received him with the greatest cordiality. The young king, then only nineteen, exclaimed: "I have now got another father instead of Sebituane."
Three or four small boxes contained all the baggage of the party. The only provisions were a few pounds of biscuits, coffee, tea, and sugar; their main reliance being upon the game which they expected to kill, and, this failing, upon the proceeds of about ten dollars' worth of beads. They also took with them a few elephants' tusks, which Sekeletu sent by way of a trading venture.
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