He is wise!"
were the usual expressions we heard before we saw him.
He was much pleased with the proof of confidence we had shown
in bringing our children, and promised to take us to see his country,
so that we might choose a part in which to locate ourselves. Our plan was,
that I should remain in the pursuit of my objects as a missionary,
while Mr. Oswell explored the Zambesi to the east. Poor Sebituane, however,
just after realizing what he had so long ardently desired,
fell sick of inflammation of the lungs, which originated in and extended from
an old wound got at Melita. I saw his danger, but, being a stranger,
I feared to treat him medically, lest, in the event of his death,
I should be blamed by his people. I mentioned this to one of his doctors,
who said, "Your fear is prudent and wise; this people would blame you."
He had been cured of this complaint, during the year before,
by the Barotse making a large number of free incisions in the chest.
The Makololo doctors, on the other hand, now scarcely cut the skin.
On the Sunday afternoon in which he died, when our usual religious service
was over, I visited him with my little boy Robert. "Come near,"
said Sebituane, "and see if I am any longer a man. I am done."
He was thus sensible of the dangerous nature of his disease, so I ventured
to assent, and added a single sentence regarding hope after death.
"Why do you speak of death?" said one of a relay of fresh doctors;
"Sebituane will never die." If I had persisted, the impression
would have been produced that by speaking about it I wished him to die.
After sitting with him some time, and commending him to the mercy of God,
I rose to depart, when the dying chieftain, raising himself up a little
from his prone position, called a servant, and said, "Take Robert to Maunku
(one of his wives), and tell her to give him some milk."
These were the last words of Sebituane.
We were not informed of his death until the next day.
The burial of a Bechuana chief takes place in his cattle-pen,
and all the cattle are driven for an hour or two around and over the grave,
so that it may be quite obliterated. We went and spoke to the people,
advising them to keep together and support the heir. They took this kindly;
and in turn told us not to be alarmed, for they would not think
of ascribing the death of their chief to us; that Sebituane had just gone
the way of his fathers; and though the father had gone, he had left children,
and they hoped that we would be as friendly to his children
as we intended to have been to himself.
He was decidedly the best specimen of a native chief I ever met.
I never felt so much grieved by the loss of a black man before;
and it was impossible not to follow him in thought into the world of which
he had just heard before he was called away, and to realize
somewhat of the feelings of those who pray for the dead.
The deep, dark question of what is to become of such as he,
must, however, be left where we find it, believing that, assuredly,
the "Judge of all the earth will do right."
At Sebituane's death the chieftainship devolved, as her father intended,
on a daughter named Ma-mochisane. He had promised to show us his country
and to select a suitable locality for our residence. We had now
to look to the daughter, who was living twelve days to the north, at Naliele.
We were obliged, therefore, to remain until a message came from her;
and when it did, she gave us perfect liberty to visit any part of the country
we chose. Mr. Oswell and I then proceeded one hundred and thirty miles
to the northeast, to Sesheke; and in the end of June, 1851, we were rewarded
by the discovery of the Zambesi, in the centre of the continent.
This was a most important point, for that river was not previously known
to exist there at all. The Portuguese maps all represent it
as rising far to the east of where we now were; and if ever any thing
like a chain of trading stations had existed across the country between
the latitudes 12 Deg. and 18 Deg. south, this magnificent portion of the river
must have been known before. We saw it at the end of the dry season,
at the time when the river is about at its lowest, and yet there was
a breadth of from three hundred to six hundred yards of deep flowing water.
Mr. Oswell said he had never seen such a fine river, even in India.
At the period of its annual inundation it rises fully twenty feet
in perpendicular height, and floods fifteen or twenty miles of lands
adjacent to its banks.
The country over which we had traveled from the Chobe was perfectly flat,
except where there were large ant-hills, or the remains of former ones,
which had left mounds a few feet high. These are generally
covered with wild date-trees and palmyras, and in some parts
there are forests of mimosae and mopane. Occasionally the country
between the Chobe and Zambesi is flooded, and there are
large patches of swamps lying near the Chobe or on its banks.
The Makololo were living among these swamps for the sake of the protection
the deep reedy rivers afforded them against their enemies.
Now, in reference to a suitable locality for a settlement for myself,
I could not conscientiously ask them to abandon their defenses
for my convenience alone. The healthy districts were defenseless,
and the safe localities were so deleterious to human life,
that the original Basutos had nearly all been cut off by the fever;
I therefore feared to subject my family to the scourge.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 43 of 295
Words from 43347 to 44366
of 306638
