A DAY IN KHAMA'S COUNTRY 21 



On the other hand, the men entirely monopolize 

 the care of cattle and the labours of hunting and 

 of war. 



Dove and Mackay had come in with three and a 

 half brace of francolins, besides having lost one or 

 two birds in long grass and covert, so that we had 

 now ao^ain some game in the larder. While we sat 

 at breakfast, some wild-looking natives, coming down 

 from the Zambesi on their weary pilgrimage to the 

 diamond-fields, came and camped not far from our 

 wagons. They were from the far Barutse valley, 

 and, poor fellows! looked as if they had travelled 

 long and fared hard. All their worldly possessions 

 consisted of a few lumps of crystallized salt from 

 some salt-pan, a little grain, their gourd calabashes 

 for carrying water, their skin cloaks, a Lechwe 

 water-buck skin or two, and assegais and battle-axes. 

 It seemed but a poor outfit for that terribly long 

 tramp of hundreds of miles to Kimberley; yet 

 natives from the Zambesi and the farthest parts of 

 South Africa are to be constantly seen on their way 

 to and from Kimberley and Johannesburg. It speaks 

 volumes for the faith of these remote and barbarous 

 native tribes in the good faith and honesty of the 

 British in South Africa, who monopolize the mining 

 centres, attract labour, and pay the wages. To my 

 mind, this is one of the most striking evidences of 

 English progress to be seen in all South Africa. We 



