There, suffering intensely from thirst,
he and his party came to a small well.
He decided that the men,
not the cattle, should drink it, the former being of most value,
as they could fight for more should these be lost. In the morning
they found the cattle had escaped to the Damaras.
-
* We found the Batauana in possession of this breed when we discovered
Lake Ngami. One of these horns, brought to England by Major Vardon,
will hold no less than twenty-one imperial pints of water; and a pair,
brought by Mr. Oswell, and now in the possession of Colonel Steele,
measures from tip to tip eight and a half feet.
-
Returning to the north poorer than he started, he ascended the Teoughe
to the hill Sorila, and crossed over a swampy country to the eastward.
Pursuing his course onward to the low-lying basin of the Leeambye,
he saw that it presented no attraction to a pastoral tribe like his,
so he moved down that river among the Bashubia and Batoka,
who were then living in all their glory. His narrative resembled closely
the "Commentaries of Caesar", and the history of the British in India.
He was always forced to attack the different tribes, and to this day
his men justify every step he took as perfectly just and right.
The Batoka lived on large islands in the Leeambye or Zambesi,
and, feeling perfectly secure in their fastnesses, often allured
fugitive or wandering tribes on to uninhabited islets
on pretense of ferrying them across, and there left them to perish
for the sake of their goods. Sekomi, the chief of the Bamangwato,
was, when a child, in danger of meeting this fate; but a man still living
had compassion on him, and enabled his mother to escape with him by night.
The river is so large that the sharpest eye can not tell the difference
between an island and the bend of the opposite bank; but Sebituane,
with his usual foresight, requested the island chief who ferried him across
to take his seat in the canoe with him, and detained him by his side
till all his people and cattle were safely landed. The whole Batoka country
was then densely peopled, and they had a curious taste
for ornamenting their villages with the skulls of strangers.
When Sebituane appeared near the great falls, an immense army collected
to make trophies of the Makololo skulls; but, instead of succeeding in this,
they gave him a good excuse for conquering them, and capturing so many cattle
that his people were quite incapable of taking any note
of the sheep and goats. He overran all the high lands toward the Kafue,
and settled in what is called a pastoral country, of gently undulating plains,
covered with short grass and but little forest. The Makololo have never lost
their love for this fine, healthy region.
But the Matebele, a Caffre or Zulu tribe, under Mosilikatse,
crossed the Zambesi, and, attacking Sebituane in this choice spot,
captured his cattle and women.
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