Some Of Their Wives Came
With Very Young Infants In Their Arms.
This excited no discontent;
and for some I had to speak to the chief to order the men,
who had married the only wives some of my companions ever had,
to restore them.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 5TH. A large audience listened most attentively
to my morning address. Surely some will remember the ideas conveyed,
and pray to our merciful Father, who would never have thought of Him
but for this visit. The invariably kind and respectful treatment
I have received from these, and many other heathen tribes in this
central country, together with the attentive observations of many years,
have led me to the belief that, if one exerts himself for their good,
he will never be ill treated. There may be opposition to his doctrine,
but none to the man himself.
While still at Naliele, a party which had been sent after me
by Masiko arrived. He was much disappointed because I had not visited him.
They brought an elephant's tusk, two calabashes of honey,
two baskets of maize, and one of ground-nuts, as a present.
Masiko wished to say that he had followed the injunction which I had given
as the will of God, and lived in peace until his brother Limboa came,
captured his women as they went to their gardens, and then appeared
before his stockade. Masiko offered to lead his men out;
but they objected, saying, "Let us servants be killed, you must not be slain."
Those who said this were young Barotse who had been drilled to fighting
by Sebituane, and used shields of ox-hide. They beat off the party of Limboa,
ten being wounded, and ten slain in the engagement. Limboa subsequently sent
three slaves as a self-imposed fine to Masiko for attacking him. I succeeded
in getting the Makololo to treat the messengers of Masiko well, though,
as they regarded them as rebels, it was somewhat against the grain at first
to speak civilly to them.
Mpololo, attempting to justify an opposite line of conduct,
told me how they had fled from Sebituane, even though he had given them
numbers of cattle after their subjection by his arms, and was rather surprised
to find that I was disposed to think more highly of them
for having asserted their independence, even at the loss of milk.
For this food, all who have been accustomed to it from infancy in Africa
have an excessive longing. I pointed out how they might be
mutually beneficial to each other by the exchange of canoes and cattle.
There are some very old Barotse living here who were the companions
of the old chief Santuru. These men, protected by their age, were very free
in their comments on the "upstart" Makololo. One of them, for instance,
interrupted my conversation one day with some Makololo gentlemen
with the advice "not to believe them, for they were only a set of thieves;"
and it was taken in quite a good-natured way.
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