SEKOMI. 37 
son has left the place, and nearly the whole of 
Mungwato went with him. The chief himself, 
Sekomi, is still here, and often comes down to the 
waggons begging. He got quite drunk the other 
night, and tumbled under my waggon. We had to 
see him home. He thinks his son means to kill 
him. He himself killed two or three of his own 
brothers when he came to be chief, but his two 
eldest sons are both Christians, and Mackenzie 
thinks Sekomi is in no danger from them. . . . 
There are some nice flowers of the lily sort sprung 
up since the rain began, but very few flowers of 
other kinds yet. The rains, however, have only 
just commenced, and we shall have all the summer 
heat going down." 
Again, from Pretoria, he writes on December 
5th:— 
" I got here on the 2d instant, and great was my 
delight on receiving letters from home — the first I 
have had since leavinor Pietermaritzbure. ... It 
seems quite strange to be in a civilized place again. 
It is very pretty here now, just the height of sum- 
mer. We are indulging in fruit and vegetables, 
eggs and milk, to all of which we have long been 
strangers. The peaches are hardly ripe yet, but 
apricots are to be bought for a shilling a hundred. 
... In coming from Mungwato we had to stop a 
week at the Meriko, as the river was very high with 
the rains and we couldn't cross. I had some thouofhts 
of taking my waggon in pieces, and floating the 
things across on rafts, but the water kept subsiding, 
