Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/116

 tribute, and to appoint them their share of hunting-work.

The Makalakas (of whom I had so low an opinion) were moving about in large numbers between the Nata and Zambesi in 1875 and 1876; they were chiefly fugitives from Shoshong, having been expelled thence by the inhabitants, who were infuriated by their treachery.

When we reached the third spring we found that Jakobs and Kurtin had already settled there before us. Another trader, whom I may distinguish as X., arrived after us on the same day; he had visited Sepopo, the king of the Marutseland, whither I was directing my course, and he gave me an introduction to a friend of his, whom I should be sure to meet further north on the Panda ma Tenka. I asked him to convey two of my cases of curiosities to Shoshong, but although he promised to deliver them, I am sorry to record that I never heard any more about them. In exchange for 800 lbs. of ivory, Mr. Kurtin sold him two cream-coloured horses, one of which I had myself cured of an illness in Shoshong; the ivory that X. was conveying in two waggons did not weigh less than 7000 lbs., of which 5000 lbs. had been obtained from Sepopo, the rest having been procured by his own people during their excursions on the southern shore of the Zambesi, between the Victoria Falls and the mouth of the Chobe. He warned me that there was great risk of getting fever on the Zambesi, and that in the district ahead of us there was great scarcity of water. In return for some medicines with which I supplied him, he very courteously sent me a good portion of a cow that he had just killed.