He Went Off Honestly,
With The Exception Of Taking A Fine "Tari" Skin Given Me By Nyamoana,
But He Left A Parcel Of Gun-Flints Which He Had Carried For Me
All The Way From Loanda.
I regretted parting with him thus,
and sent notice to him that he need not have run away,
and
If he wished to come to Sekeletu again he would be welcome.
We subsequently met a large party of Barotse fleeing in the same direction;
but when I represented to them that there was a probability
of their being sold as slaves in Londa, and none in the country of Sekeletu,
they concluded to return. The grievance which the Barotse most feel
is being obliged to live with Sekeletu at Linyanti, where there is neither
fish nor fowl, nor any other kind of food, equal in quantity
to what they enjoy in their own fat valley.
A short distance below the confluence of the Leeba and Leeambye
we met a number of hunters belonging to the tribe called Mambowe,
who live under Masiko. They had dried flesh of hippopotami, buffaloes,
and alligators. They stalk the animals by using the stratagem of a cap
made of the skin of a leche's or poku's head, having the horns still attached,
and another made so as to represent the upper white part of the crane
called jabiru (`Mycteru Senegalensis'), with its long neck and beak above.
With these on, they crawl through the grass; they can easily
put up their heads so far as to see their prey without being recognized until
they are within bow-shot. They presented me with three fine water-turtles,*
one of which, when cooked, had upward of forty eggs in its body.
The shell of the egg is flexible, and it is of the same size at both ends,
like those of the alligator. The flesh, and especially the liver,
is excellent. The hunters informed us that, when the message
inculcating peace among the tribes came to Masiko, the common people
were so glad at the prospect of "binding up the spears",
that they ran to the river, and bathed and plunged in it for joy. This party
had been sent by Masiko to the Makololo for aid to repel their enemy,
but, afraid to go thither, had spent the time in hunting.
They have a dread of the Makololo, and hence the joy they expressed
when peace was proclaimed. The Mambowe hunters were much alarmed
until my name was mentioned. They then joined our party,
and on the following day discovered a hippopotamus dead,
which they had previously wounded. This was the first feast of flesh
my men had enjoyed, for, though the game was wonderfully abundant,
I had quite got out of the way of shooting, and missed perpetually.
Once I went with the determination of getting so close that I should not miss
a zebra. We went along one of the branches that stretch out from the river
in a small canoe, and two men, stooping down as low as they could,
paddled it slowly along to an open space near to a herd of zebras and pokus.
Peering over the edge of the canoe, the open space seemed
like a patch of wet ground, such as is often seen on the banks of a river,
made smooth as the resting-place of alligators.
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