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Updated: May 31, 2025


On the 18th we entered Sesheke. The old town, now in ruins, stands on the left bank of the river. The people have built another on the same side, a quarter of a mile higher up, since their headman Moriantsiane was put to death for bewitching the chief with leprosy. Sekeletu was on the right bank, near a number of temporary huts.

The number of alligators is prodigious, and in this river they are more savage than in some others. Many children are carried off annually at Sesheke and other towns; for, notwithstanding the danger, when they go down for water they almost always must play a while. This reptile is said by the natives to strike the victim with its tail, then drag him in and drown him.

Some recommended my going to Sesheke, and crossing over in a N.E. direction to the Kafue, which is only six days distant, and descending that river to the Zambesi. Others recommended me to go on the south bank of the Zambesi until I had passed the falls, then get canoes and proceed farther down the river.

Having got the loan of other canoes from Mpololo, and three oxen as provision for the way, which made the number we had been presented with in the Barotse valley amount to thirteen, we proceeded down the river toward Sesheke, and were as much struck as formerly with the noble river.

Ivory is dear at Sesheke; but cheaper in the Batoka country, from Sinamane's to the Kafue, than anywhere else. The trader from Benguela took orders for goods for his next year's trip, and offered to bring tea, coffee, and sugar at cent. per cent. prices.

The knowledge of the people is scanty, but their reasoning is generally clear as far as their information goes. We left Sesheke on the 17th September, 1860, convoyed by Pitsane and Leshore with their men. Pitsane was ordered by Sekeletu to make a hedge round the garden at the Falls, to protect the seeds we had brought; and also to collect some of the tobacco tribute below the Falls.

Although the tribe had been suffering from famine, the chief treated his visitors with all the hospitality in his power. Some Benguela traders had come up to Sesheke, intending probably to return from the Batoka country to the east with slaves; but the Makololo, however, had secured all the ivory in that region.

In theory the chief is absolute and quite despotic; in practice his authority is limited, and he cannot, without occasionally putting refractory headmen to death, force his subordinates to do his will. Except the small rapids by Mparira island, near the mouth of the Chobe, the rest of the way to Sesheke by water is smooth.

Sebituane's sister, the head lady of Sesheke, wore eighteen solid brass rings, as thick as one's finger, on each leg, and three of copper under each knee; nineteen brass rings on her left arm, and eight of brass and copper on her right, also a large ivory ring above each elbow. She had a pretty bead necklace, and a bead sash encircled her waist.

On hearing that there was a possibility of a powerful steamer ascending as far as Sinamane's, but never above the Grand Victoria Falls, he asked, with charming simplicity, if a cannon could not blow away the Falls, so as to allow the vessel to come up to Sesheke.

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