xxin SUPERSTITION AND A SEQUEL 221 



clothes by way of chastisement for her unseemly 

 conduct. 



Those of my men who had been left in camp 

 then asked him how it was that he had returned 

 with my cartridges, binoculars, etc., to which he 

 replied that I had given him permission, but they, 

 with the keen intuition of their race, guessed that 

 he had deserted, and promptly tied him up pending 

 my return. My men's wives, infuriated at the 

 brutal way Makabuli had treated his wife, begged 

 me on my return to punish him severely. Feeling 

 that Makabuli deserved it, I told them that they 

 had better take the law into their own hands and 

 mete out the punishment they thought most appro- 

 priate to the occasion. This they promptly did : 

 about a dozen of them (and I may say that a native 

 woman is no weakling) soundly thrashed him, and, 

 as a native can suffer no greater humiliation than to 

 be beaten by women, Makabuli, I think, thoroughly 

 expiated his misdemeanour. 



