All Being Ready For Our Departure,
I Took Mrs. Livingstone About Six Miles From The Town, That She Might Have
A Peep At The Broad Part Of The Lake.
Next morning we had other work to do
than part, for our little boy and girl were seized with
Fever.
On the day following, all our servants were down too with the same complaint.
As nothing is better in these cases than change of place,
I was forced to give up the hope of seeing Sebituane that year;
so, leaving my gun as part payment for guides next year,
we started for the pure air of the Desert.
Some mistake had happened in the arrangement with Mr. Oswell, for we met him
on the Zouga on our return, and he devoted the rest of this season
to elephant-hunting, at which the natives universally declare
he is the greatest adept that ever came into the country.
He hunted without dogs. It is remarkable that this lordly animal
is so completely harassed by the presence of a few yelping curs
as to be quite incapable of attending to man. He makes awkward attempts
to crush them by falling on his knees; and sometimes places his forehead
against a tree ten inches in diameter; glancing on one side of the tree
and then on the other, he pushes it down before him, as if he thought thereby
to catch his enemies. The only danger the huntsman has to apprehend is
the dogs running toward him, and thereby leading the elephant to their master.
Mr. Oswell has been known to kill four large old male elephants a day.
The value of the ivory in these cases would be one hundred guineas.
We had reason to be proud of his success, for the inhabitants
conceived from it a very high idea of English courage;
and when they wished to flatter me would say, "If you were not a missionary
you would just be like Oswell; you would not hunt with dogs either."
When, in 1852, we came to the Cape, my black coat eleven years out of fashion,
and without a penny of salary to draw, we found that Mr. Oswell
had most generously ordered an outfit for the half-naked children,
which cost about 200 Pounds, and presented it to us, saying he thought
Mrs. Livingstone had a right to the game of her own preserves.
Foiled in this second attempt to reach Sebituane, we returned again
to Kolobeng, whither we were soon followed by a number of messengers
from that chief himself. When he heard of our attempts to visit him,
he dispatched three detachments of his men with thirteen brown cows
to Lechulatebe, thirteen white cows to Sekomi, and thirteen black cows
to Sechele, with a request to each to assist the white men to reach him.
Their policy, however, was to keep him out of view, and act as his agents
in purchasing with his ivory the goods he wanted. This is thoroughly African;
and that continent being without friths and arms of the sea,
the tribes in the centre have always been debarred from European intercourse
by its universal prevalence among all the people around the coasts.
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