Would attribute our deaths
to our own stupidity and "hard-headedness" (tlogo, e thata),
"as we did not intend to allow our companions and guides to return
till they had put us into our graves." We sent a handsome present to Sekomi,
and a promise that, if he allowed the Bakalahari to keep the wells
open for us, we would repeat the gift on our return.
After exhausting all his eloquence in fruitless attempts to persuade us
to return, the under-chief, who headed the party of Sekomi's messengers,
inquired, "Who is taking them?" Looking round, he exclaimed,
with a face expressive of the most unfeigned disgust, "It is Ramotobi!"
Our guide belonged to Sekomi's tribe, but had fled to Sechele;
as fugitives in this country are always well received, and may even afterward
visit the tribe from which they had escaped, Ramotobi was in no danger,
though doing that which he knew to be directly opposed
to the interests of his own chief and tribe.
All around Serotli the country is perfectly flat, and composed of
soft white sand. There is a peculiar glare of bright sunlight
from a cloudless sky over the whole scene; and one clump of trees and bushes,
with open spaces between, looks so exactly like another,
that if you leave the wells, and walk a quarter of a mile in any direction,
it is difficult to return.
