THE COURT HERALD. 97 



The court herald, an old man who occupied the post also 

 in Sebituane's time, stood up, and after some antics, such 

 as leaping, and shouting at the top of his voice, roared out 

 some adulatory sentences, as, " Don't I see the white man ? 

 Don't I see the comrade of Sebituane? Don't I see the 

 father of Sekeletu?" — " We want sleep/' — " Give your son 

 sleep, my lord," &c. &c. The perquisites of this man are 

 the heads of all the cattle slaughtered by the chief, and he 

 even takes a share of the tribute before it is distributed 

 and taken out of the kotla. He is expected to utter all the 

 proclamations, call assemblies, keep the kotla clean, and 

 the fire burning every evening, and when a person is 

 executed in public he drags away the bodj^. 



I found Sekeletu a young man of eighteen years of age, 

 of that dark yellow or coffee-and-rnilk color of which the 

 Makololo are so proud, because it distinguishes them 

 considerably from the black tribes on the rivers. He is 

 about five feet seven in height, and neither so good-looking 

 nor of so much ability as his father was, but is equally 

 friendly to the English. Sebituane installed his daughter 

 Mamochisane into the chieftainship long before his death, 

 but, with all his acuteness, the idea of her having a hus- 

 band who should not be her lord did not seem to enter his 

 mind. He wished to make her his successor, probably in 

 imitation of some of the negro tribes with whom he had 

 come into contact; but, being of the Bechuana race, ho 

 could not look upon the husband except as the woman's 

 lord; so he told her all the men were hers, — she might 

 take any one, but ought to keep none. In fact, he thought 

 she might do with the men what he could do with the 

 women ; but these men had other wives; and, according 

 to a saying in the country, " the tongues of women can- 

 not be governed," they made her miserable by their re- 

 marks. One man whom she chose was even called her wife, 

 and her son the child of Mamochisane's wife; but the ar- 

 rangement was so distasteful to Mamochisane herself that, 

 as soon as Sebituane died, she said she never would consent 

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