My Own Makalaka,
Who Were Accustomed To Plunder Wherever They Went, Rushed After Them
Like Furies, Totally Regardless Of My Shouting.
As this proceeding
would have destroyed my character entirely at Lobale, I took my stand
on a commanding position as they returned, and forced them
to lay down all the plunder on a sand-bank, and leave it there
for its lawful owners.
It was now quite evident that no healthy location could be obtained in which
the Makololo would be allowed to live in peace. I had thus a fair excuse,
if I had chosen to avail myself of it, of coming home and saying
that the "door was shut", because the Lord's time had not yet come.
But believing that it was my duty to devote some portion of my life
to these (to me at least) very confiding and affectionate Makololo,
I resolved to follow out the second part of my plan, though I had failed
in accomplishing the first. The Leeba seemed to come from the N. and by W.,
or N.N.W.; so, having an old Portuguese map, which pointed out the Coanza
as rising from the middle of the continent in 9 Deg. S. lat.,
I thought it probable that, when we had ascended the Leeba (from 14d 11')
two or three degrees, we should then be within one hundred and twenty miles
of the Coanza, and find no difficulty in following it down to the coast
near Loanda. This was the logical deduction; but, as is the case
with many a plausible theory, one of the premises was decidedly defective.
The Coanza, as we afterward found, does not come from any where near
the centre of the country.
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