146 GAME. 



and drown him. When lying in the water watching for 

 prey, the body never appears. Many calves are lost also, 

 and it is seldom that a number of cows can swim over at 

 besheke without some loss. I never could avoid shudder- 

 ing on seeing my men swimming across these branches, 

 after one of them had been caught by the thigh and taken 

 below. He, however, retained, as nearly all of them in 

 the most trying circumstances do, his full presence of mind, 

 and, having a small, square, ragged-edged javelin with 

 him, when dragged to the bottom gave the alligator a stab 

 behind the shoulder. The alligator, writhing in pain, left 

 him, and he came out with the deep marks of the reptile's 

 teeth on his thigh. Here the people have no antipathy to 

 persons who have met with such an adventure ; but in the 

 Bamangwato and Bakwain tribes, if a man is either bitten 

 or even has had water splashed over him by the reptile's 

 tail, he is expelled his tribe. 



When we had gone thirty or fort} 7 miles above Libonta, 

 we sent eleven of our captives to the west, to the chief 

 called Makoma, with an explanatory message. This 

 caused some delay ; but as we were loaded with presents 

 of food from the Makololo, and the wild animals were in 

 enormous herds, we fared sumptuously. It was grievous, 

 however, to shoot the lovely creatures, they were so tame. 

 With but little skill in stalking, one could easily get within 

 fifty or sixty } T ards of them. There I lay, looking at the 

 graceful forms and motions of beautiful pokus, leches, and 

 other antelopes, often till my men, wondering what was 

 the matter, came up to see, and frightened them away. 

 If we had been starving, I could have slaughtered them 

 with as little hesitation as I should cut off a patient's leg; 

 but I felt a doubt, and the antelopes got the benefit of it. 



My men, having never had fire-arms in their hands be- 

 fore, found it so difficult to hold the musket steady at the 

 flash of fire in the pan, that they naturally expected me to 

 furnish them with "gun-medicine," without which, it is 

 almost universally believed, no one can shoot straight. 



