Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/267

 love our village life and our hunting; we catch our game in pits and not by arms; we give up our elephants’ tusks to the remorseless Matabele; we show them where to hunt the elephants; let them hunt as they will; we want not the blood of the beasts, much less do we thirst for the blood of men!”

It had been a Manansa custom, after the death of a king, for the men to meet together and conduct the heir to the royal residence; then they brought a handful of sand and small stones from the Zambesi, and a hammer; these they gave him as tokens of his sovereignty over the land and over water and iron, symbolizing industry and labour. At the same time they reminded him of the obligation that rested upon him that from the day of his accession to the throne he was to eat the flesh neither of the rhinoceros nor the hippopotamus, as these being “mischievous” animals, would be likely to impart their own evil qualities to him.

Even regarded as unassociated with the magnificence of the Victoria Falls, the Albert country, with its wooded rocks and grassy valleys, is undoubtedly one of the most attractive districts in the whole of South Africa. Intersected by the Zambesi, it is bounded by the sandy pool plateau on the south, and extends as far as the mouth of the Chobe on the west. Geologist, botanist, mineralogist, all alike must find it full of interest. Except the springbock, blessbock, and black gnu, all the larger kinds of mammalia are to be seen that Southern and Central Africa can show. Reptiles are numerous, and crocodiles haunt the banks and troubled waters of the remotest mountain streams. Insects of