Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/268



olden days a certain portion of the Basuto were cannibals, but it is supposed they originally became so from starvation rather than from choice. Our groom's father had been a cannibal, and had "eaten of the white man's heart," but no persuasions of mine would induce the old man to tell me anything about it. He was evidently afraid to speak, and I only heard about it from his son, who seemed rather proud to possess such a father. When first we were stationed at Thlotsi Heights, in the north of Basutoland, an old woman lived there who in her girlhood had a wonderful escape from a small band of cannibals. In those days she was fat and young, a truly tempting object, and one day she was all alone, walking from her home to the "lands." The three cannibals seized and bound her, and carried her off to their lair. There they amputated both little finger top joints and removed her upper lip, then placing her in a pot of warm water they left her to bleed to death while they went to collect fuel; but she, happening to be a particularly robust, determined damsel, managed to free herself from her bonds and escaped to her home, where her wounds were attended to and she quickly recovered. Many years after, as she was preparing the porridge for breakfast, outside her hut, two old men came up and asked for food. She looked up, recognised them as two of her former captors, and gave them breakfast, afterwards pointing out the marks of their cruelty to her and telling them who she was.