34 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE MANTATEES. 



Our visitors, whom I have called Mantatees, are 

 doubtless an offshoot of the Bechuana race — who at 

 one time inhabited all the north of the Transvaal — 

 so are not Makalakas, as I had previously supposed. 

 Now, among this tribe are to be found some splendid 

 hunters — men imbued with all the acumen, patience, 

 and perseverance of their neighbours, the dwarf 

 Bushmen of the Kalihari desert, and, therefore, 

 possess the making of just such a hunter as we 

 found in the ranks of the new comers. He was 

 a clean-limbed, slightly-built, wonderfully active 

 youth, with the most accurate eye for a spoor, and, 

 as we discovered afterwards, possessed of a know- 

 ledge of the habits of wild animals that must have 

 made him in after years a most valuable acquisition 

 to his kraal. 



First one cause and afterwards another had con- 

 fined us to the vicinity of our camp, but this inertness 

 was suddenly brought to a close by the lad in ques- 

 tion returning to camp soon after sunrise one morning 

 with the information that a number of elephants had 

 passed across the adjoining drift during the night, 

 and were heading for the adjacent hills. Among the 



