80 THE BANAJOA — THE TSETSE. Chap. IV. 



his importance before his friends, he walked up boldly and com- 

 manded our whole cavalcade to stop, and to bring forth fire and 

 tobacco, while he coolly sat down and smoked Iris pipe. It was 

 such an inimitably natural way of showing off, that we all stopped 

 to admire the acting, and, though he had left us previously in 

 the lurch, we all liked Shobo, a fine specimen of that wonderful 

 people, the Bushmen. 



Next day we came to a village of Banajoa, a tribe which 

 extends far to the eastward. They were living on the borders 

 of a marsh in which the Mababe terminates. They had lost their 

 crop of corn (holcus sorghum), and now subsisted almost entirely 

 on the root called "tsitla," a kind of aroidoea, which contains 

 a very large quantity of sweet-tasted starch. When dried, pounded 

 into meal, and allowed to ferment, it forms a not unpleasant 

 article of food. The women shave all the hair off their heads, 

 and seem darker than the Bechuanas. Their huts were built 

 on poles, and a fire is made beneath by night, in order that the 

 smoke may drive away the mosquitoes, which abound on the 

 Mababe and Tamunak'le more than in any other part of the 

 country. The head man of this village, Majane, seemed a little 

 wanting in ability ; but had had wit enough to promote a younger 

 member of the family to the office. This person, the most like 

 the ugly negro of the tobacconists' shops I ever saw, was called 

 Moroa Majane, or son of Majane, and proved an active guide 

 across the river Sonta, and to the banks of the Chobe, in the 

 country of Sebituane. We had come through another tsetse 

 district by night, and at once passed our cattle over to the northern 

 bank to preserve them from its ravages. 



A few remarks on the Tsetse, or Glossina morsitans, may here 

 be appropriate. It is not much larger than the common house- 

 fly, and is nearly of the same brown colour as the common 

 honey-bee ; the after part of the body has three or four yellow 

 bars across it ; the wings project beyond this part considerably, 

 and it is remarkably alert, avoiding most dexterously all attempts 

 to capture it with the hand, at common temperatures; in the 

 cool of the mornings and evenings it is less agile. Its peculiar 

 buzz when once heard can never be forgotten by the traveller 

 whose means of locomotion are domestic animals ; for it is well 

 known that the bite of this poisonous insect is certain death to 



