Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/279

 respect, their quarters being nearly always surrounded by residents patiently waiting their turn to be admitted to an audience.

On the 14th I received a visit from a dancer. The calves of his legs were covered with bells made of fruit-shells, and his dancing consisted of little more than shaking himself so that the bells were all set in motion.

Amongst the other inmates of Sepopo’s court was a Mambari named Kolintshintshi, who held the office of royal tailor; he had been taken prisoner during one of the raids of the Marutse to the west; two companions who had been captured at the same time had been restored to their home after receiving a liberal present of cattle, whilst Kolintshintshi had been detained.

During the time that I was delayed at Sesheke I took several opportunities of rambling into the surrounding woods, and found a number of trees and bushes that were quite new to me, whilst a great proportion of the kinds that I had already seen in the Bechuana forests appeared here to attain double the height that they did elsewhere. Four-footed game was very plentiful, and I noticed a hartebeest with flat compressed horns, different from any kind with which I was acquainted. Birds, likewise, seemed tolerably numerous, and I found a singular kind of bee-eater (Merops Nubicus), a grey medium-sized hornbill, the great plotus, and two species of spurred plovers with yellow wattles.

Returning from a walk I came across one of the caravans that arrive from the more distant parts of the kingdom, bringing in the periodical tribute for the king. It consisted of about thirty