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.
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