The Acts Of A Stranger Are Keenly Scrutinized
By Both Young And Old, And Seldom Is The Judgment Pronounced,
Even By The Heathen, Unfair Or Uncharitable.
I have heard women
speaking in admiration of a white man because he was pure,
and never was guilty of any secret immorality.
Had he been,
they would have known it, and, untutored heathen though they be,
would have despised him in consequence. Secret vice becomes known
throughout the tribe; and while one, unacquainted with the language,
may imagine a peccadillo to be hidden, it is as patent to all
as it would be in London had he a placard on his back.
27TH OCTOBER, 1855. The first continuous rain of the season
commenced during the night, the wind being from the N.E., as it always was
on like occasions at Kolobeng. The rainy season was thus begun,
and I made ready to go. The mother of Sekeletu prepared a bag of ground-nuts,
by frying them in cream with a little salt, as a sort of sandwiches
for my journey. This is considered food fit for a chief.
Others ground the maize from my own garden into meal, and Sekeletu pointed out
Sekwebu and Kanyata as the persons who should head the party
intended to form my company. Sekwebu had been captured by the Matebele
when a little boy, and the tribe in which he was a captive had migrated
to the country near Tete; he had traveled along both banks of the Zambesi
several times, and was intimately acquainted with the dialects spoken there.
I found him to be a person of great prudence and sound judgment,
and his subsequent loss at the Mauritius has been, ever since,
a source of sincere regret.
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