Ch. VL SECHELE'S INTENDED JOURNEY TO ENGLAND. 121 



excused myself on the ground that my arrangements were already 

 made for exploring the north. On explaining the difficulties of 

 the way, and endeavouring to dissuade him from the attempt, on 

 account of the knowledge I possessed of the governor's policy, he 

 put the pointed question, " Will the Queen not listen to me, sup- 

 posing I should reach her ? " I replied, " I believe she would 

 listen, but the difficulty is to get to her." " Well, I shall reach 

 her," expressed Ins final determination. Others explained the 

 difficulties more fully, but nothing could shake his resolution. 

 Allien he reached Bloemfontein he found the English army just 

 returning from a battle with the Basutos, in winch both parties 

 claimed the victory, and both were glad that a second engage- 

 ment was not tried. Our officers invited Sechele to dine with 

 them, heard his story, and collected a handsome sum of money 

 to enable him to pursue his journey to England. The com- 

 mander refrained from noticing him, as a single word in favour 

 of the restoration of the children of Sechele would have been a 

 virtual confession of the failure of his own policy at the very 

 outset. Sechele proceeded as far as the Cape ; but his resources 

 being there expended, he was obliged to return to Ins own country, 

 one thousand miles distant, without accomplishing the object of 

 his journey. 



On his return he adopted a mode of punishment which he had 

 seen in the colony, namely, making criminals work on the public 

 roads. And he has since, I am informed, made himself the 

 missionary to his own people. He is tall, rather corpulent, and 

 has more of the negro feature than common, but has large eyes. 

 He is very dark ; and his people swear by " Black Sechele." He 

 has great intelligence, reads well, and is a fluent speaker. Great 

 numbers of the tribes, formerly living under the Boers, have 

 taken refuge under his sway, and he is now greater in power 

 than he was before the attack on Kolobeng. 



Having parted with Sechele, we skirted along the Kalahari 

 Desert, and sometimes within its borders, giving the Boers a wide 

 berth. A larger fall of rain than usual had occurred in 1852, 

 and that was the completion of a cycle of eleven or twelve years, 

 at which the same phenomenon is reported to have happened 

 on three occasions. An unusually large crop of melons had 

 appeared in consequence. We had the pleasure of meeting with 



