Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/316

 me with a visit next day. In the course of his conversation with Westbeech and myself, he gave us some fresh information about the Barotse, the mother country of the Marutse. Noticing how I made entries in my “lungalo” (book) of all that I had seen in Sesheke, he told me that when I got to the towns of the Barotse I should see many objects much more worthy of being recorded; the buildings, he assured me, were very superior, and he referred especially to the monuments of the kings. What he described, added to what I had heard from Westbeech, as well as from the king, from Moquai, from the chiefs Rattan and Ramakocan, and from the Portuguese, only served to increase the longing with which I looked forward to the journey before me. The conversation afterwards turned upon Maritella, the heir to the throne, who had died. Maranzian said that after his death the king had had all the cattle from the town and environs driven to the grave, and left standing there until they bellowed with hunger and thirst; whereupon he exclaimed: “See, how the very cattle are mourning for my son!”

When the king returned from his great hunting-expedition he was extremely discontented with the result, and consequently very much out of temper. On one of the days the party had sighted more than a hundred elephants in the swamps near Impalera, but although at least 10,000 shots had been fired only four elephants had been killed. I called to see him and he showed me the tusks that had been brought back; there were two weighing 60 lbs., six between 25 lbs. and 3t0 lbs., four small female tusks, and four from animals so small that they were