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"Although I was so weak, I could not at once follow his advice. To begin with, my head ached with fever, and I was torn with anxiety as to the fate of the Hottentot Hans; and, indeed, as to our own fate, left with sore feet, empty stomachs, and two cartridges, to find our way to Bamangwato, forty miles off.
Sekomi, the present chief of the Bamangwato, then an infant in his mother's arms, was enabled, through the kindness of a private Batoka, to escape. This act seems to have made an indelible impression on Sekomi's heart, for though otherwise callous, he still never fails to inquire after the welfare of his benefactor.
Having watered the cattle at a well called Lobotani, about N.W. of Bamangwato, we next proceeded to a real Kalahari fountain, called Serotli. The country around is covered with bushes and trees of a kind of leguminosae, with lilac flowers. The soil is soft white sand, very trying to the strength of the oxen, as the wheels sink into it over the felloes and drag heavily.
The Bakalahari, or western branch of the Bechuana family, consists of Barolong, Bahurutse, Bakuena, Bangwaketse, Bakaa, Bamangwato, Bakurutse, Batauana, Bamatlaro, and Batlapi. Among the last the success of missionaries has been greatest.
The Bechuana hold their own in several centers; one is in Basutoland, west of Natal, where a number of tribes were welded together under the far-sighted Moshesh into a modern and fairly well civilized nation. In the north part of Bechuanaland are the self-governing Bamangwato and the Batwana, the former ruled by Khama, one of the canniest of modern rulers in Africa.
In serried masses thousand upon thousand the Bamangwato faced their great chief. He lifted up his voice: "I, Khama, your chief, order that you shall not make beer. You take the corn that God has given to us in answer to our prayers and you destroy it. Nay, you not only destroy it, but you make stuff with it that causes mischief among you." There was some murmuring. His eyes flashed like steel.
The Bechuanas who had accompanied me, on hearing of my success, snatched up their shields and assagais, and hastened to secure the flesh, nor did I see any more of them, with the exception of the two Baquaines, who remained with me, being engaged in a plot with my interpreter to prevent my penetrating to Bamangwato.
The Bakwains, the Bangwaketze, and the Bamangwato all fled thither; and the Matebele marauders, who came from the well-watered east, perished by hundreds in their attempts to follow them. One of the Bangwaketze chiefs, more wily than the rest, sent false guides to lead them on a track where, for hundreds of miles, not a drop of water could be found, and they perished in consequence.
Coming from a land without rivers, none of them knew how to swim; and one tribe, called the Bamangwato, wishing to cross the Zambesi, was ferried over, men and women separately, to different islands, by one of the Batoka chiefs; the men were then left to starve and the women appropriated by the ferryman and his people.
This deposit contains a bitter salt in addition, probably the nitrate of lime; the natives, in order to render it palatable and wholesome, mix the salt with the juice of a gummy plant, then place it in the sand and bake it by making a fire over it; the lime then becomes insoluble and tasteless. The Bamangwato keep large flocks of sheep and goats at various spots on this side of the Desert.
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