Inoculation Does Not Insure Immunity,
As Animals Which Have Been Slightly Bitten In One Year May Perish
By A Greater
Number of bites in the next; but it is probable
that with the increase of guns the game will perish,
As has happened
in the south, and the tsetse, deprived of food, may become extinct
simultaneously with the larger animals.
The Makololo whom we met on the Chobe were delighted to see us;
and as their chief Sebituane was about twenty miles down the river,
Mr. Oswell and I proceeded in canoes to his temporary residence.
He had come from the Barotse town of Naliele down to Sesheke
as soon as he heard of white men being in search of him,
and now came one hundred miles more to bid us welcome into his country.
He was upon an island, with all his principal men around him,
and engaged in singing when we arrived. It was more like church music
than the sing-song ee ee ee, ae ae ae, of the Bechuanas of the south,
and they continued the tune for some seconds after we approached.
We informed him of the difficulties we had encountered, and how glad we were
that they were all at an end by at last reaching his presence.
He signified his own joy, and added, "Your cattle are all bitten
by the tsetse, and will certainly die; but never mind, I have oxen,
and will give you as many as you need." We, in our ignorance, then thought
that as so few tsetse had bitten them no great mischief would follow.
He then presented us with an ox and a jar of honey as food, and handed us over
to the care of Mahale, who had headed the party to Kolobeng,
and would now fain appropriate to himself the whole credit of our coming.
Prepared skins of oxen, as soft as cloth, were given to cover us
through the night; and, as nothing could be returned to this chief,
Mahale became the owner of them. Long before it was day Sebituane came,
and sitting down by the fire, which was lighted for our benefit
behind the hedge where we lay, he narrated the difficulties
he had himself experienced, when a young man, in crossing that same desert
which we had mastered long afterward. As he has been most remarkable
in his career, and was unquestionably the greatest man in all that country,
a short sketch of his life may prove interesting to the reader.
Sebituane was about forty-five years of age; of a tall and wiry form,
an olive or coffee-and-milk color, and slightly bald; in manner
cool and collected, and more frank in his answers than any other chief
I ever met. He was the greatest warrior ever heard of beyond the colony;
for, unlike Mosilikatse, Dingaan, and others, he always
led his men into battle himself. When he saw the enemy,
he felt the edge of his battle-axe, and said, "Aha!
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