Chapman'' s Travels in South Africa. 203 



traders refusing to deal on such terms, and leaving his territories, 

 and abandoning them not to return, he does not alter his extrava- 

 gant demands ; and yet, when the trader refuses them, he does not 

 attempt openly to seize upon the coveted goods and murder their 

 owners, but allows them to depart. He throws all sort of passive 

 obstacles in the way of their going : forbids his people to aid them, 

 refuses guides, nay, is suspected even of attempting to poison them, 

 but actual force is rarely had recouse to. 



" There's such divinity doth hedge a king, 

 That treason can but peep to what it would, 

 Acts little of its will." 



The whites and traders are kings to these poor savages, and their 

 homage is derived from the power which they see they possess. 

 The tribes where this marvellous resj^ect is paid occupy precisely 

 the districts where the prowess of the whites as hunters is well 

 known. When they see a man with a single gun face and conquer 

 wild animals, which it would take their whole tribe to vanquish, it 

 is not surprising that they should have a sort of superstitious awe 

 of these wonderful whites. It is partly fear, and partly the in- 

 stinctive homage of superiority which is paid by the dog to his 

 master, by the mice to the cat, that paralyses the hand they would 

 like to raise against them. Some of the more degraded tribes, 

 indeed, are so cowed and abject that any one, whether black or 

 white, with a gun in his hand, may bully and abuse hundreds with- 

 out the slightest resistance being offered. But this does not apply 

 to the generahty of the savages. It is the coolness and courage of 

 the white traders in their intercourse with themselves which has 

 given them this divinity in the eyes of the blacks. The following 

 incident, which occurred in one of Chapman's difficulties with 

 them, throws a world of light upon the nature of the immunity 

 which the whites enjoy at their hands, while it at the same time 

 explains the means by whicli it has been acquired: — 



" At this moment a Bushman arrived breathless from the east in search of the 

 Makalakas, with a message from Shunkaan entreating me to fly without delay, 

 as three of Moselikatze's towns were up in arms, and in pursuit of the Baman- 

 wato, who had been in my track reconnoitering Moselikatze's cattle, and he 

 feared his troops would fall on us by mistake if I did not get out of the way 

 before they arrived. In the meantime, I had discovered from one of my guides 

 that the Bamanwato and the Makalakas were leagued together. The latter, 

 wishing to escape fi-om Moselikatze's rule and place themselves under the protec- 

 tion of Sekomi, and join the tribes he had gathered, had invited the Bamanwato 



