Of Ivory, Which Sells At The Cape
For 5s. Per Pound, For A Second-Hand Musket Worth 10s.
I, Being
Sixty miles distant, did not witness this attempt at barter,
but, anxious to enable my countrymen to drive a brisk
Trade,
told the Makololo to sell my ten tusks on their own account
for whatever they would bring. Seventy tusks were for sale,
but, the parties not understanding each other's talk,
no trade was established; and when I passed the spot some time afterward,
I found that the whole of that ivory had been destroyed by an accidental fire,
which broke out in the village when all the people were absent.
Success in trade is as much dependent on knowledge of the language
as success in traveling.
I had brought with me as presents an improved breed of goats,
fowls, and a pair of cats. A superior bull was bought, also as a gift
to Sekeletu, but I was compelled to leave it on account of its
having become foot-sore. As the Makololo are very fond of improving
the breed of their domestic animals, they were much pleased with my selection.
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.
They have two breeds of cattle among them. One, called the Batoka,
because captured from that tribe, is of diminutive size, but very beautiful,
and closely resembles the short-horns of our own country. The little pair
presented by the King of Portugal to H.R.H. the prince consort,
is of this breed. They are very tame, and remarkably playful;
they may be seen lying on their sides by the fires in the evening;
and, when the herd goes out, the herdsman often precedes them,
and has only to commence capering to set them all a gamboling.
The meat is superior to that of the large animal. The other, or Barotse ox,
is much larger, and comes from the fertile Barotse Valley.
They stand high on their legs, often nearly six feet at the withers;
and they have large horns. Those of one of a similar breed
that we brought from the lake measured from tip to tip eight and a half feet.
The Makololo are in the habit of shaving off a little
from one side of the horns of these animals when still growing,
in order to make them curve in that direction and assume fantastic shapes.
The stranger the curvature, the more handsome the ox is considered to be,
and the longer this ornament of the cattle-pen is spared to beautify the herd.
This is a very ancient custom in Africa, for the tributary tribes of Ethiopia
are seen, on some of the most ancient Egyptian monuments,
bringing contorted-horned cattle into Egypt.
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