An Intelligent Gentleman Of Tette Told Us That Native Traders
Often Come To Him With A Tusk For Sale, Consider
The price he offers,
demand more, talk over it, retire to consult about it, and at length
go away without
Selling it; next day they try another merchant, talk,
consider, get puzzled and go off as on the previous day, and continue
this course daily until they have perhaps seen every merchant in the
village, and then at last end by selling the precious tusk to some
one for even less than the first merchant had offered. Their love of
dawdling in the transaction arises from the self-importance conferred
on them by their being the object of the wheedling and coaxing of
eager merchants, a feeling to which even the love of gain is
subordinate.
The native medical profession is reasonably well represented. In
addition to the regular practitioners, who are a really useful class,
and know something of their profession, and the nature and power of
certain medicines, there are others who devote their talents to some
speciality. The elephant doctor prepares a medicine which is
considered indispensable to the hunters when attacking that noble and
sagacious beast; no hunter is willing to venture out before investing
in this precious nostrum. The crocodile doctor sells a charm which
is believed to possess the singular virtue of protecting its owner
from crocodiles. Unwittingly we offended the crocodile school of
medicine while at Tette, by shooting one of these huge reptiles as it
lay basking in the sun on a sandbank; the doctors came to the
Makololo in wrath, clamouring to know why the white man had shot
their crocodile.
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