552 AUTHOR'S INFLUENCE WITH NATIVES. 



which had been given by the bishop, for fear of hurting them by 

 any work. 



Although the Makololo were so confiding, the reader must not 

 imagine that they would be so to every individual who might visit 

 them. Much of my influence depended upon the good name given 

 me by the Bakwains, and that I secured only through a long 

 course of tolerably good conduct. No one ever gains much in- 

 fluence in this country without purity and uprightness. The acts 

 of a stranger are keenly scrutinized by both young and old, and 

 seldom is the judgment pronounced, even by the heathen, unfair 

 or uncharitable. I have heard women speaking in admiration of 

 a white man because he was pure, and never was guilty of any 

 secret immorality. Had he been, they would have known it, and, 

 untutored heathen though they be, would have despised him in 

 consequence. Secret vice becomes known throughout the tribe; 

 and while one, unacquainted with the language, may imagine a 

 peccadillo to be hidden, it is as patent to all as it would be in 

 London had he a placard on his back. 



21th October, 1855. The first continuous rain of the season 

 commenced during the night, the wind being from the N.E., as it 

 always was on like occasions at Kolobeng. The rainy season was 

 thus begun, and I made ready to go. The mother of Sekeletu 

 prepared a bag of ground-nuts, by frying them in cream with a 

 little salt, as a sort of sandwiches for my journey. This is con- 

 sidered food fit for a chief. Others ground the maize from my 

 own garden into meal, and Sekeletu pointed out Sekwebu and 

 Kanyata as the persons who should head the party intended to 

 form my company. Sekwebu had been captured by the Matebele 

 when a little boy, and the tribe in which he was a captive had 

 migrated to the country near Tete ; he had traveled along both 

 banks of the Zambesi several times, and was intimately acquainted 

 with the dialects spoken there. I found him to be a person of 

 great prudence and sound judgment, and his subsequent loss at 

 the Mauritius has been, ever since, a source of sincere regret. He 

 at once recommended our keeping well away from the river, on 

 account of the tsetse and rocky country, assigning also as a rea- 

 son for it that the Leeambye beyond the falls turns round to ths 

 N.N.E. Mamire, who had married the mother of Sekeletu, on 

 coming to bid me farewell before starting, said, "You are now 



