THE BANAJ0A. 49 



west of us. The supply of water in the wagons had been 

 wasted by one of our servants, and by the' afternoon only 

 a small portion remained for the children. This was a bit- 

 terly anxious night ; and next morning the less there was 

 of water the more thirsty the little rogues became. The 

 idea of their perishing before our eyes was terrible. It 

 would almost have been a relief to me to have been re- 

 proached with being the entire cause of the catastrophe; 

 but not one syllable of upbraiding was uttered by their 

 mother, though the tearful eye told the agony within. In 

 the afternoon of the fifth day, to our inexpressible l-elief, 

 some of the men returned with a supply of that fluid of 

 which we had never before felt the true value. 



The cattle, in rushing along to the water in the Mahaho, 

 probably crossed a small patch of trees containing tsetse, 

 an insect which was shortly to become a perfect pest to us. 

 Shobo had found his way to the Bayeiye, and appeared, 

 when w r e came up to the river, at the head of a party; 

 and, as he wished to show his importance before his friends, 

 he walked up boldly and commanded our whole cavalcade 

 to stop, and to bring forth fire and tobacco, while he coolly 

 sat down and smoked his pipe. It was such an inimitably 

 natural way of showing off that we all stopped to admire 

 the acting, and, though he had left us previously in the 

 lurch, we all liked Shobo, a fine specimen of that wonder- 

 ful people, the Bushmen. 



Next day we came to a village of Banajoa, a tribe which 

 extends far to the eastward. They were living on the bor- 

 ders of a marsh in which the Mahabe terminates. They 

 had lost their crop of corn, (Holcus sorghum,*) and now sub- 

 sisted almost entirely on the root called "tsitla," a kind of 

 aroidoea, which contains a very large quantity of sweet-tasted 

 starch. When dried, pounded into meal, and allowed to fer- 

 ment, it forms a not unpleasant article of food. The women 

 shave all the hair off their heads, and seem darker than the 

 Bechuanas. Their huts were built on poles, and a fire ]a 

 made beneath by night, in order that the smoke may drive 



