I went home with one of the men in the evening, leaving the rest to dismember the buffalo’s body. There were many lion-tracks about, and as they cut up the joints they were obliged to hang them up out of the lions’ reach. In the midst of their operations a heavy storm came on, which made it quite impossible for them to light a fire, so that they were themselves obliged to spend the night on the branches of a tree.

Before I reached my quarters the wind had begun to blow violently, and just as I was entering the town, I saw a boat capsize with two fishermen and a quantity of fish. Fortunately the men managed to get safely to shore, but the surface of the water was covered with the dead fish, which the current carried inland. In a moment, almost like magic, from every direction there started up a crowd of boys, who began taking possession of the unexpected haul; they tore off their leather aprons, and were filling them with the best and biggest they could find, when all of a sudden their mirth was checked, and they were as eager to scramble out of the water as they had been to plunge in. The well-known red coat of the overseer of the fishermen had been observed in the distance, and the dread of the thick stick of that important official was for the tribe of juvenile freebooters a sufficient notice to quit.

The next morning I was somewhat startled by seeing a large number of men all carrying arms, and hastening towards the woods. I was beginning to wonder whether there had been an alarm of some enemy approaching, when the mystery was solved by the arrival of some young men with a message from their chief that they were going out on a lion-hunt, and inviting us to join them. Four lions had made an attack upon the royal herds, and had killed four cows.

The scene of the disaster was not far away. About 150 yards above our courtyard the Zambesi made a sudden bend from west to north, and then, after awhile, turned at right angles to the east, past New Sesheke; on the opposite side at this last bend was a lagoon that branched off into two arms, and it was on the strip of land between these that the havoc had been committed. Neither Westbeech nor Walsh cared to join the hunt, but I and Cowley accepted the invitation.

Cowley was a good-natured young fellow of eighteen, with a face round and rosy as a girl’s; his manners were very genial, and he had nothing to spoil him, except perhaps a little weakness in his desire to be a Gordon Cumming; he had already killed two lions, and was quite ready to risk his life in adding a third to the number.

Although about 170 natives had assembled with their chief, only four of them were provided with guns. It was not much more than half an hour after I had received my invitation that I arrived at the lagoon, where the whole troop advanced to meet us. It had been already decided that the track of the largest lion should be followed, and the herdsmen were being questioned about the details of the attack. It appeared that they had thought it impossible for any lions to come so near the town, and leaving their herds in a place that was quite unenclosed, they had all gone to sleep in some huts close by.

I understood that it is only when lions have done some injury that the Marutse ever go out to attack them.

Our arrival was the signal to commence operations. The procession was opened by a few natives and a couple of dogs that were put on the liontrack; Maranzian, the chief, went next, followed by Cowley and myself; the rest of the throng came on without much order behind. But it was only in the open places that any particular rank could be kept; the thorn-bushes were often so thick that even the dogs could hardly make their way through, and every one got forward as best he could. The bushes however hardly impeded us so much, or were so uncomfortable as the tall reeds in the dried-up hollows. We persevered for more than an hour without coming in sight of our prey, and the negroes began to joke about the lion feeling itself guilty, and said that it was ashamed to show its face, and glad to hide away; but on leaving the next hollow the dogs commenced growling angrily, and made a rush into another hollow beyond again, about ten feet deep and thirty feet wide. The condition of the trail satisfied us that the lion was concealed here close at hand. We made the crowd of natives halt, Maranzian and I hastened round to the farther side and prepared to fire, Cowley staying on the nearer side, and sending the dogs into the reeds; but we schemed to no purpose, the baying of the hounds made us aware that the lion had got round behind us, and we were obliged to change our position.

Followed by the throng, we proceeded to the open space beyond the reeds, close to the spot in which we imagined that the lion was now concealed, and having chosen our places where we thought we had the best chance of firing at it on its escape, we made the whole crowd shout to the top of their voices, and throw in bits of wood; and when that proved ineffectual we ordered them, whether they liked it or not, to go into the thicket and rummage about with their spears.

It was a very pandemonium. The screaming and yelling of the negroes was quite unearthly, and the noise seemed to grow louder and more frightful as their courage increased at not finding any lion to alarm them. Maranzian, with his four men that had guns, was standing about twenty yards in front of me. We were beginning to think that we were again baulked, when, like a flash of lightning, a lioness made a tremendous spring out of its concealment, and then another spring as sudden into the very midst of the excited crowd of hunters. There were so many of them scattered about between me and the angry brute, that it was out of the question to think of firing, and it made a third bound, and disappeared into another thicket close behind; it knocked over several of the men, but fortunately it did not hurt any of them seriously.

Without the loss of a moment, Maranzian sent his men to drive the lioness to the very extremity of her new retreat. It rather surprised us to find the dogs perfectly silent as we followed them into the thicket, but before long we heard them barking vehemently in the open ground beyond; they had driven out the brute, and were in full pursuit.

As he saw the lioness bounding away in the distance, with the dogs at her heels, Cowley was terribly chagrined at having abandoned his former position, and sighed over his lost chance of adding to his rising renown as a lion-hunter.

Only an artist’s pencil could properly depict the scene at this moment. The plain was more than half a mile long, and nearly as wide; bushwood enclosed it on the north, reed-thickets on the south and west; far in front was the fugitive lioness; the dogs were pressing on at various intervals, whilst the frantic crowd of well-nigh 200 negroes was scampering in the rear; nothing could be imagined more motley than their appearance; their aprons of white, or check, or brown, or red contributed a variety of colour; their leather mantles on their shoulders fluttered wildly in the wind; many of them brandished their assegais as if ready for action; others kept them balanced evenly in their hands; some of them continued to yell at the very top of their voices, and a few could be heard chanting, as if by anticipation, the strains of the lion-dance.

The climax was now at hand, and full of excitement it was. Again the lioness took refuge in a triangular thicket, with its vertex farthest from us. Close beside it was a sandbank, some ten feet high. Maranzian, with a number of men, placed himself on the right side of the thicket; I took up my position on the left, Cowley stationing himself on the sandbank at a point where he conceived the lioness when pressed by the negroes would try to escape. By encouraging words, and where words failed by the free use of a stout stick, Maranzian made a lot of the men go and ransack the reeds, and as they tumbled about they gave the place almost the aspect of a battle-field. The excitement became more intense when there remained but one little corner of the thicket to be explored. Now or never the lioness must be found. Suddenly there was an angry growl, and the beast leaped towards the pursuers. A shot was fired at that moment, but it only struck the sand; the negroes, taken by surprise, fell back, some of them disappearing altogether, a few of them desperately hurling their spears. Once again the lioness retreated, and when the natives had recovered themselves, they saw her crouching down as if prepared for another spring. Here was my chance; catching sight of her head, I took deliberate aim and fired; my shot took good effect, and at the same time a couple of spears hit her on the side. One more growl and she was dead.

It was only for greater precaution that Cowley and I, before we permitted the carcase to be moved, each put another bullet into it, but it was subsequently pierced by more than twenty spears; many of the negroes, as they approached the lifeless body, thrust the points of their assegais into it, muttering some mysterious formula. As it was the king’s cattle that had been slaughtered by the lions, the skull of the brute we had now killed would be employed as a charm, and hung up in the royal kraal.

Cowley and I returned home, leaving the carcase to be brought in afterwards. When it arrived it was received with much shouting and singing. It was carried by four of the strongest of the men on a couple of poles, its paws tied together, and its head hanging down well-nigh to the ground; it was brought into the town just as my own servants were returning with the buffalo-meat, and a large proportion of the male population turned out to greet the hunters. The next thing to be done was to beat the lion-drums, and to announce that the lion-dance would be performed. The procession advanced in two groups, one consisting of the bearers, with the carcase as a trophy of success; the other being the hunters. The leader of the expedition opened the dance, and he was followed by such of the huntsmen as had been nearest at the death; they were accompanied in their performance by the beating of a drum. The dancers next gave a representation of the lion-hunt, running in all directions, and pretending to hurl their spears; the singing was taken up by the two groups alternately, and though it was not so monotonous as some that I heard at other times, yet any melody it might have had was utterly destroyed by the painful discord of the instruments that accompanied it.

After the body of the lioness had been deposited on the ground under a mimosa, we took the opportunity of investigating the wounds. It turned out that my first bullet had passed completely along the left side of the skull, and that immediately on receiving it the wounded beast had fallen so as to leave only the lower part of its face exposed; this we had both struck, and we traced one bullet into the vertebræ of the neck, while the other, Cowley’s we presumed, had shivered the lower skull-bone to splinters.

In making my memoranda of this lion-hunt I used up the last of my writing-paper; it was some that Westbeech had torn out of his own journal and given me. It was now that I found the newspapers that I had received from Shoshong very useful; the parts that were printed on were very serviceable for pressing plants, and I was only too glad to fasten the margins together into sheets by means of mimosa-gum, and to use them for writing on.

After our hunting triumph Maranzian honoured 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 30 lbs., four small female tusks, and four from animals so small that they were comparatively of no value. The two largest tusks had been much injured by the bullets.

On the 7th I started off on the longest pedestrian excursion I had yet taken, rambling on for fifty-two miles. Leaving Sesheke in good time, I crossed the western part of Blockley’s kraal and made my way to the Kashteja, where I had to go a long way up the stream before I could find a fording-place. The lower part of this affluent of the Zambesi is flat and meadow-like and bordered with underwood. On my way thither I noticed zebras, striped-gnus, letshwe and puku antelopes, and rietbock and steinbock gazelles. In the river-valley itself the orbekis and rietbocks had congregated in herds, a mode of living which I had never seen before, nor do I think that any other hunter had.

Altogether dissatisfied with their visit to Sesheke, the English officers were now very anxious to leave; but Sepopo would not provide them with canoes, and though they urged their request again on the following day, they were again refused. Blockley returned from Panda ma Tenka on the 9th. I was much pleased to greet once more a man who had shown me so much kindness; and I accompanied him when he paid his visit to Sepopo.

The king at length rejoiced my heart by acceding to my long-cherished wishes; he told me that Moquai and the queens who had come from the Barotse country were about to return, and that I was at liberty to go with them. Fellow-travellers more influential than these distinguished ladies could not be desired.

On my next visit to Sepopo I found the royal courtyard crowded with people. As soon as I entered the house the king asked me whether I had ever seen any Mashukulumbe; and understanding that I had not, he took me by the hand and introduced me to six men who were squatting on the ground. Their appearance was strange, and seemed to invite a careful scrutiny. Their skin was almost black, and their noses generally aquiline, though they had an effeminate cast of countenance, to be attributed very much to their lack of beard and to the sinking in of the upper lip. All hair was carefully removed from every part of their bodies, except the top of the skull, where it was mounted up in a very remarkable fashion.

The Mashukulumbe, Sepopo informed me, were the people who lived to the north and east of his territory; and the men who had now arrived were ambassadors who were sent every year to the Marutse court with complimentary presents, and who would go back in a few weeks carrying other presents in return. When at home they go perfectly naked, the women wearing nothing but a little leather strap, hung with bells and fastened round their waists. Their pride is their coiffure, which consists of a conical chignon that fits tight round the head, and is composed of vertical rolls or horizontal tiers, the tresses being most ingeniously plaited together, sometimes crossing and recrossing each other, sometimes kept quite parallel; the whole being finally matted together with gum, which gives it the appearance of really growing from the crown of the head. But this is by no means the case; the hair that is periodically shaved off the entire body, except from the patch of ten or twelve inches in circumference on the head, is all carefully preserved until enough has been accumulated for the headgear; and the master of the house will not unfrequently add the hair of his wives and slaves, twisting it up into bands that are intertwined with his own. I saw a coiffure twelve inches round, worked into a tail more than a yard long that inclined towards the right shoulder; so that every time the man moved, and especially when he stooped, the headdress appeared to be toppling over with him. The average height to which the hair was trained was about ten inches; but in all cases the unusual weight upon the skull had the effect of developing the muscles of the temples till they stood out like cords, not unfrequently as thick as one’s finger. The falling in of the top lip was caused by extracting the upper incisor-teeth, an operation with the Mashukulumbe that corresponds with the boguera of the Bechuanas, and is practised upon youths when attaining the state of manhood, being part of their discipline. One of the Makalaka tribes north of the Zambesi, as well as the Matongas on its bank, break out their top incisor-teeth from the sheerest vanity. Their women say that it is only horses that eat with all their teeth, and that men ought not to eat like horses.

With the help of his attendants, the king was engaged in manufacturing a musical instrument out of the leaf-ribs of a saro-palm. Except just at the ends, the concave surface was hollowed into a furrow, the convex side underneath being scored with a number of little incisions about the thirtieth part of an inch in width. When played, the instrument is struck with small sticks, and is used particularly at the elephant-dance.

Westbeech, Dorehill, and Cowley left on the 10th for Panda ma Tenka; but Sepopo still refused to provide any canoes for the English officers, who were becoming more impatient than ever to get away.

On the 11th he had a mokoro, or boat-dance, executed through the town. It was supposed to represent a boating-excursion, the principal feature being a boat-song that was sung in chorus. On this occasion the king himself took the leading part, and went through all the gesticulations of a steersman, whilst about seventy of his people had to follow him and imitate the movements of rowers.

Not doubting that the English officers would very soon be permitted to depart, I had devoted some time to the preparation of several articles for insertion in various journals in England and at home; but I now began to fear that the opportunity of entrusting my correspondence to their charge would be again deferred. At length, however, the desired boats were forthcoming, and they were suffered to take their departure. Sepopo made a last effort to detain them, but finally yielded to their solicitations. The boatmen, taking their cue from the king, were at first inclined to be disagreeable; but I interfered and checked their insolence, and they were all brought to reason before the officers proceeded on their way.

My next excursion was towards the north-east. I shot a steinbock, and secured a good variety of coleoptera.

Rising before daybreak on the 21st, I set out on a ramble to the north, not returning till after sunset. The dew in the morning was very heavy; and I was tired in the evening by my long exertions; but I was amply compensated for all inconvenience and fatigue by the many objects of interest that I saw and collected. Many parts of the wood were overgrown with a tall spreading shrub covered with large white blossoms that perfumed the air with their fragrance. In one of the glades I found two new kinds of lilies, one with a handsome violet-coloured flower. A leaf-beetle of a yellow-ochre tint had settled on the other lily; and I likewise discovered another species with red and blue stripes, and two new species of weevils on the young sprouts of the musetta bushes. As I went back I caught three sorts of little rose-beetles on the white-flowering shrubs; and in a dry grassy hollow I found the species of Lytta which I had already seen in Sechele’s country during my second journey.

Having arranged to join a buffalo-hunt on the 24th, I retired to my hut rather earlier than usual on the previous evening; and it was scarcely nine o’clock when I was roused by a noise like sounds of weeping coming from the river. At first I did not take any particular heed; but finding that the noise continued, and that there was a murmur of voices that seemed to increase, I had the curiosity to send Narri, one of my servants, to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. In a few minutes he came running back with the news that Queen Moquai was having one of her maids drowned. Unable to believe that she could be capable of such an act, I hurried out, determined to convince myself by the testimony of my own eyes before I would credit so shameful a report.

A crowd of men and women, brawling, screeching, and laughing, was gathered on the shore; and just as I arrived, the body of a girl, apparently lifeless, was being lifted up the bank. In a few moments, however, she recovered consciousness and was dragged away towards Moquai’s quarters.

I followed in the train, and as I went I elicited the facts of the case. The girl was a slave of Moquai’s, and on the day before had been informed by her mistress that she was to marry a hideous old Marutse wood-carver. Folding her hands upon her breast, she had expressed her desire to be submissive as far as she could, but was quite unable to conceal her aversion to the husband that had been chosen for her; she burst into piteous sobs, which had the effect of making the queen extremely angry, and she dismissed the girl from her presence. Altogether unused to have her wishes questioned, the queen presently had the girl recalled. Again she protested that she was anxious to serve her mistress with all fidelity, but pleaded that she might have nothing to do with the odious old man she was expected to marry. Moquai’s fury had known no bounds; she had sent for the proposed bridegroom, and given him instructions to carry off the girl that very night from the royal hut to the river, to hold her under the water till she was half dead, and thence to take her to his own quarters, where she would wake up again a “mosari”—a married woman.

The orders were duly executed; and I had not been awake long next morning before I heard the singing and beating of drums that betokened that the nuptial dance was being performed in Moquai’s courtyard before the door of the newlymarried pair. On going to the spot I found ten men kicking up their heels and slowly twisting themselves round in an oval course, while a man in the middle pirouetted in the contrary direction, and beat time with the bough of a tree; they all wore aprons of roughly-tanned leather, mostly the skins of lynxes and grey foxes, and many of them had the calves of their legs, as in the other dances, covered with bells or fruit-shells. The singing of the man in the middle was accompanied by the beating of two of the large drums; and four more dancers were squatted on the ground, ready to relieve any of the ten men that were tired out. Two boys of about ten years of age were amongst the dancers; and various passers-by stayed and took a turn at the performance for the sake of having a share in the kaffir-corn beer which the queen would distribute when the dance was over. Every now and then the whole of the dancers would put shoulder to shoulder, sing aloud in chorus, and quicken their pace to a great rapidity. The dance would be repeated at intervals for no less than three days.

I passed the place again on the afternoon of the following day as I was on my way back from the woods, and found the huts appropriated to the attendants in the queen’s enclosure still in a state of uproar; there was still the group of dancers; a number of extra performers were drinking from the brimming pitchers of butshuala that were continually replenished; while many spectators, attracted by the sound of the drums, added the hum of their voices to the general merriment. The unfortunate bride alone seemed to have no enjoyment of the festivity; dejected and miserable, she sat in front of her hut, with her head resting on her hands, and her eyes gazing vacantly towards the next enclosure; manifestly she neither saw nor heard anything that was going on.

A day or two afterwards we were surprised by a serenade from Sepopo and Moquai, who were accompanied by a band of eight musicians, including two performers on the myrimbas, or gourd-shell pianos, and four on the morupas, or long drums. Not to offend the king, I stayed at home all day.

At noon on the following day Westbeech returned from Panda ma Tenka with guns for the king. Two Portuguese also made their appearance in the town. They called themselves Señhores; but one was as black as a Mambari, though he indignantly repudiated the appellation. His name was Francis Roquette, and including some black women, he had twenty servants in his train, who all had their woolly hair shaved off, except a small tuft standing up at the top of their head like a back-comb. Both the Portuguese had arrived from the north, having come from one of the Mashukulumbe countries, where they had bartered the great bulk of their goods, and had brought the small residue to Sesheke, consisting of flint-guns, cases of coarse gunpowder, some lead and iron bullets, and a little calico.

Long before this time my servants had finished making the canvas coverings for my baggage; and as far as I was concerned I was ready to set out. It was therefore with unbounded satisfaction that I saw the council-chamber being furbished up, the great drums being put into readiness, and the various other indications that the queens were really about to take their departure.

Expectation was not much longer deferred. On the 1st of December I started on the expedition for which I had waited so eagerly and so long.