550 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE MAKOLOLO. 



an opposite character. The rich show kindness to the poor in 

 expectation of services, and a poor person who has no relatives 

 will seldom be supplied even with water in illness, and, when dead, 

 will be dragged out to be devoured by the hysenas instead of be- 

 ing buried. Relatives alone will condescend to touch a dead body. 

 It would be easy to enumerate instances of inhumanity which I 

 have witnessed. An interesting-looking girl came to my wagon 

 one day in a state of nudity, and almost a skeleton. She was a 

 captive from another tribe, and had been neglected by the man 

 who claimed her. Having supplied her wants, I made inquiry for 

 him, and found that he had been unsuccessful in raising a crop of 

 corn, and had no food to give her. I volunteered to take her; 

 but he said he would allow me to feed her and make her fat, and 

 then take her away. I protested against his heartlessness ; and, 

 as he said he could "not part with his child," I was precluded 

 from attending to her wants. In a day or two she was lost sight 

 of. She had gone out a little way from the town, and, being too 

 weak to return, had been cruelly left to perish. Another day I 

 saw a poor boy going to the water to drink, apparently in a 

 starving condition. This case I brought before the chief in 

 council, and found that his emaciation was ascribed to disease and 

 want combined. He was not one of the Makololo, but a member 

 of a subdued tribe. I showed them that any one professing to 

 claim a child, and refusing proper nutriment, would be guilty of 

 his death. Sekeletu decided that the owner of this boy should 

 give up his alleged right rather than destroy the child. When I 

 took him he was so far gone as to be in the cold stage of starva- 

 tion, but was soon brought round by a little milk given three or 

 four times a day. On leaving Linyanti I handed him over to the 

 charge of his chief, Sekeletu, who feeds his servants very well. 

 On the other hand, I have seen instances in which both men and 

 women have taken up little orphans and carefully reared them as 

 their own children. By a selection of cases of either kind, it 

 would not be difficult to make these people appear excessively 

 good or uncommonly bad. 



I still possessed some of the coffee which I had brought from 

 Angola, and some of the sugar which I had left in my wagon. 

 So long as the sugar lasted, Sekeletu favored me with his com- 

 pany at meals ; but the sugar soon came to a close. The 



