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. Oswell and Murray went out on one occasion
to get an eland, and were accompanied by one of the Bakalahari.
The perfect sameness of the country caused even this son of the Desert
to lose his way; a most puzzling conversation forthwith ensued
between them and their guide. One of the most common phrases of the people
is "Kia itumela", I thank you, or I am pleased; and the gentlemen
were both quite familiar with it, and with the word "metse", water.
But there is a word very similar in sound, "Kia timela", I am wandering;
its perfect is "Ki timetse", I have wandered. The party had been
roaming about, perfectly lost, till the sun went down; and,
through their mistaking the verb "wander" for "to be pleased", and "water",
the colloquy went on at intervals during the whole bitterly cold night
in somewhat the following style:
"Where are the wagons?"
REAL ANSWER. "I don't know. I have wandered. I never wandered before.
I am quite lost."
SUPPOSED ANSWER. "I don't know. I want water. I am glad,
I am quite pleased. I am thankful to you."
"Take us to the wagons, and you will get plenty of water."
REAL ANSWER (looking vacantly around). "How did I wander?
Perhaps the well is there, perhaps not. I don't know. I have wandered."
SUPPOSED ANSWER. "Something about thanks; he says he is pleased,
and mentions water again." The guide's vacant stare while trying to remember
is thought to indicate mental imbecility, and the repeated thanks
were supposed to indicate a wish to deprecate their wrath.
"Well, Livingstone HAS played us a pretty trick, giving us in charge
of an idiot. Catch us trusting him again. What can this fellow mean
by his thanks and talk about water? Oh, you born fool! take us to the wagons,
and you will get both meat and water. Wouldn't a thrashing
bring him to his senses again?" "No, no, for then he will run away,
and we shall be worse off than we are now."
The hunters regained the wagons next day by their own sagacity,
which becomes wonderfully quickened by a sojourn in the Desert;
and we enjoyed a hearty laugh on the explanation of their midnight colloquies.
Frequent mistakes of this kind occur. A man may tell his interpreter
to say that he is a member of the family of the chief of the white men;
"YES, YOU SPEAK LIKE A CHIEF," is the reply, meaning, as they explain it,
that a chief may talk nonsense without any one daring to contradict him.
They probably have ascertained, from that same interpreter,
that this relative of the white chief is very poor, having scarcely any thing
in his wagon.
I sometimes felt annoyed at the low estimation in which
some of my hunting friends were held; for, believing that the chase
is eminently conducive to the formation of a brave and noble character,
and that the contest with wild beasts is well adapted for fostering that
coolness in emergencies, and active presence of mind, which we all admire,
I was naturally anxious that a higher estimate of my countrymen
should be formed in the native mind. "Have these hunters,
who come so far and work so hard, no meat at home?" - "Why, these men
are rich, and could slaughter oxen every day of their lives." - "And yet
they come here, and endure so much thirst for the sake of this dry meat,
none of which is equal to beef?" - "Yes, it is for the sake of play besides"
(the idea of sport not being in the language). This produces a laugh,
as much as to say, "Ah! you know better;" or, "Your friends are fools."
When they can get a man to kill large quantities of game for them,
whatever HE may think of himself or of his achievements,
THEY pride themselves in having adroitly turned to good account
the folly of an itinerant butcher.
The water having at last flowed into the wells we had dug
in sufficient quantity to allow a good drink to all our cattle,
we departed from Serotli in the afternoon; but as the sun, even in winter,
which it now was, is always very powerful by day, the wagons were dragged
but slowly through the deep, heavy sand, and we advanced only six miles
before sunset. We could only travel in the mornings and evenings,
as a single day in the hot sun and heavy sand would have knocked up the oxen.
Next day we passed Pepacheu (white tufa), a hollow lined with tufa,
in which water sometimes stands, but it was now dry; and at night
our trocheamer* showed that we had made but twenty-five miles from Serotli.
-
* This is an instrument which, when fastened on the wagon-wheel,
records the number of revolutions made. By multiplying this number
by the circumference of the wheel, the actual distance traveled over
is at once ascertained.
-
Ramotobi was angry at the slowness of our progress, and told us that,
as the next water was three days in front, if we traveled so slowly
we should never get there at all.
