FAREWELL TO SOSHONG. 427 



Of course, this was a very hard case. " But why 

 did you not use your barometer?" 



" I thought of that, but feared the people would not 

 understand it, so did not propose it." 



Mr. Clark, our Nantucket sailor, thus figured as 

 an authority on literature and science, and so I left 

 him. 



At Soshong, I bade a fond farewell to traders, and 

 particularly to my kind and dear friends, the mis- 

 sionaries, who had done more than I could ever have 

 expected to make me happy and comfortable during my 

 sojourn among them, and more than I shall ever be able 

 to repay. 



It was a blistering hot day when I bade adieu to 

 good King Kama's qapital ; and when I did so, the 

 monarch himself presented me with a bunch of magni- 

 ficent blood ostrich-feathers ; and as I shook his soft, 

 delicate hand, I could not help thinking what a perfect 

 type of an aristocrat he was, even although he was 

 black. 



Mashue I reached in thirty-two hours. The road 

 was fearfully heavy, up over the tires of the wheels at 

 every yard, and my faithful, patient bullocks far from 

 strong. 



Here, a year or two ago, an incident took place 

 which is worth recording. This vley, Mashue, which 

 never is without water, is a favourite haunt of lions in 

 fact, I may say, never without a troop, or, more pro- 

 perly, a family, frequenting it. It is passed once in 

 every two weeks by the Bechuanas that carry the mail 

 between Sechelle's and Soshong, and occasionally a 

 traveller finds his way along it ; for it is the shortest 

 route to the north-west corner of the Transvaal, but not 



