428 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



town, the inhabitants of which informed us that the 

 elephants had passed their village during the night. 

 As it was already about 2 p.m., we thought it too 

 late to follow the spoor farther, especially as the 

 Makubas assured us that the elephants would be 

 sure to drink near here again the following night, 

 so we waded across the marsh to an island, and 

 camped a good way from where we thought the 

 wary brutes were likely to drink. 



The Makubas along this part of the Chobe are a 

 very primitive-looking people, not many degrees in 

 the social scale above the Bushmen. Their huts are 

 simply a few grass mats stretched over a framework 

 of light poles. They had no domestic animals, but 

 a few halt-starved jackal-looking dogs, and seemed 

 to be living entirely upon the roots of an aquatic 

 plant which they called " seeta," a few fish, and an 

 odd head of game, which they either catch them- 

 selves in a pitfall, or else take from the lions. These 

 animals, they say, are here very numerous and 

 daring, and the fact that the little villages we saw 

 were surrounded by palisades of poles, all slanting 

 outwards at an angle of 45°, and sharpened at the 

 points as if intended to prevent these beasts from 

 springing over them, seemed to indicate that such 

 was the fact. 



September 22nd. — As yet we had seen nothing 

 more of the elephants, notwithstanding that we had 

 paid a visit to the grave of Sebituane, the renowned 

 warrior who founded the Makololo kingdom, taking 

 with us the carcase of a reedbuck entire, with which 

 to propitiate his ghost, and going through all sorts 

 of mystic incantations, which included having our 

 rifles and cartridges spat upon by a professor of 

 demonology. The Kafirs swore that they had never 



