144 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



character. Surrounded by his tribesmen, he stood irresolute 

 and quite overcome in the presence of two ordinary-looking 

 Europeans. Livingstone entered at once into conversation 

 with him, and by degrees partly reassured him but throughout 

 that day and the next, a sad, half-scared look never faded from 

 his face. He had wished us to visit him, had sent an am- 

 bassage to Livingstone at Kolobeng, but the reality of our 

 coming, with all its possibilities, dangers, and advantages seemed 

 to flit through the man's mind as in a vision. He killed an ox 

 for us, and treated us right royally ; he was far and away the 

 finest Kafir I ever saw in mien and manner. 



He had been told that Livingstone and I occasionally wrote 

 a letter to one another, if by chance we were separated for a day 

 or two and wished to communicate or arrange a meeting at a 

 certain point, and asked us if his information were true that we 

 could make one another hear when far apart, and if we could 

 give him an example of our power. Livingstone took a man 

 out of even Kafir earshot, four or five hundred yards away, and 

 then whisperingly asked him his own and his wife's name, and 

 writing them on a scrap of paper sent him to me. 'Well, 

 Ra'chobe, and how is Seboni your wife ? ' I asked. The chief 

 and his headmen, who were gathered expectant round, were 

 amazed and somewhat frightened, taking it for magic, though 

 they soon got over it. 



It does not do to introduce Kafirs too suddenly to the 

 common things of civilised life. I once lost an admiring 

 audience by an act of this kind. A laughing circle was 

 round me, and I was dispensing beads, brass wire, and tiny 

 looking-glasses to ingratiate myself with a new tribe, the 

 Macoba, when by way of amusing them I took a burning-glass 

 from my pocket and ignited a pinch of gunpowder strewed on 

 the waggon-box, telling them what I was going to do, and 

 preparing them for it. With the puff, man, woman, and child, 

 vanished ; it was days before I could regain their confidence, 

 and throughout my stay with them I was looked upon with awe 

 as the wizard of the sun. 



