He decided that the men,
not the cattle, should drink it, the former being of most value,
as they could fight for more should these be lost. In the morning
they found the cattle had escaped to the Damaras.
-
* We found the Batauana in possession of this breed when we discovered
Lake Ngami. One of these horns, brought to England by Major Vardon,
will hold no less than twenty-one imperial pints of water; and a pair,
brought by Mr. Oswell, and now in the possession of Colonel Steele,
measures from tip to tip eight and a half feet.
-
Returning to the north poorer than he started, he ascended the Teoughe
to the hill Sorila, and crossed over a swampy country to the eastward.
Pursuing his course onward to the low-lying basin of the Leeambye,
he saw that it presented no attraction to a pastoral tribe like his,
so he moved down that river among the Bashubia and Batoka,
who were then living in all their glory. His narrative resembled closely
the "Commentaries of Caesar", and the history of the British in India.
He was always forced to attack the different tribes, and to this day
his men justify every step he took as perfectly just and right.
The Batoka lived on large islands in the Leeambye or Zambesi,
and, feeling perfectly secure in their fastnesses, often allured
fugitive or wandering tribes on to uninhabited islets
on pretense of ferrying them across, and there left them to perish
for the sake of their goods.
