16 SECHELE. 



is indicated by the terms Mo or Le. Thus Mokwain is a single 

 person of the Bakwain tribe, and Lekoa is a single white man or 

 Englishman — Makoa being Englishmen. 



I attached myself to the tribe called Bakuena or Bakwains, the 

 chief of which, named Sechele, was then living with his people 

 at a place called Shokuane. I was from the first struck by his 

 intelligence, and by the marked manner in which we both felt 

 drawn to each other. As this remarkable man has not only 

 embraced Christianity, but expounds its doctrines to his people, 

 I will here give a brief sketch of his career. 



His great-grandfather Mochoasele was a great traveler, and the 

 first that ever told the Bakwains of the existence of white men. 

 In his father's lifetime two white travelers, whom I suppose to 

 have been Dr. Cowan and Captain Donovan, passed through the 

 country (in 1808), and, descending the Kiver Limpopo, were, with 

 their party, all cut off by fever. The rain-makers there, fearing 

 lest their wagons might drive away the rain, ordered them to 

 be thrown into the river. This is the true account of the end 

 of that expedition, as related to me by the son of the chief at 

 whose village they perished. He remembered, when a boy, 

 eating part of one of the horses, and said it tasted like zebra's 

 flesh. Thus they were not killed by the Bangwaketse, as re- 

 ported, for they passed the Bakwains all well. The Bakwains 

 were then rich in cattle ; and as one of the many evidences of the 

 desiccation of the country, streams are pointed out where thousands 

 and thousands of cattle formerly drank, but in which water now 

 never flows, and where a single herd could not find fluid for its 

 support. 



When Sechele was still a boy, his father, also called Mochoasele, 

 was murdered by his own people for taking to himself the wives 

 of his rich under-chiefs. The children being spared, their friends 

 invited Sebituane, the chief of the Makololo, who was then in 

 those parts, to reinstate them in the chieftainship. Sebituane 

 surrounded the town of the Bakwains by night ; and just as it 

 began to dawn, his herald proclaimed in a loud voice that he had 

 come to revenge the death of Mochoasele. This was followed by 

 Sebituane's people beating loudly on their shields all round the 

 town. The panic was tremendous, and the rush like that from 

 a theatre on fire, while the Makololo used their javelins on the 



