596 NATIVES' IDEAS OF THE ENGLISH. Chai-. XXIX. 



without clouds. Mrs. L. heard it once, but I never had that good 

 fortune. It is worth the attention of the observant. Humboldt 

 has seen rain without clouds, a phenomenon quite as singular. 

 I have been in the vicinity of the fall of three aerolites, none of 

 which I could afterwards discover. One fell into the lake Kuma- 

 dau with a report somewhat like a sharp peal of thunder. The 

 women of the Bakurutse villages there, all uttered a scream on 

 hearing it. This happened at midday, and so did another at 

 what is called the Great Chuai, winch was visible in its descent, 

 and was also accompanied with a thundering noise. The third 

 fell near Kuruman and at night, and was seen as a falling star by 

 people at Motito and at Daniel's Kuil, places distant forty miles 

 on opposite sides of the spot. It sounded to me like the report 

 of a great gun, and a few seconds after, a lesser sound as if 

 striking the earth after a rebound. Does the passage of a few 

 such aerolites through the atmosphere to the earth by day cause 

 thunder without clouds ? 



We were detained here so long that my tent became again 

 quite rotten. One of my men, after long sickness, which I did 

 not understand, died here. He was one of the Batoka, and, when 

 unable to walk, I had some difficulty in making his companions 

 carry him. They wished to leave him to die when Ins case 

 became hopeless. Another of them deserted to Mozinkwa. He 

 said that his motive for doing so was that the Makololo had 

 killed both his father and mother, and, as he had neither wife 

 nor child, there was no reason why he should continue longer 

 with them. I did not object to his statements, but said if he 

 should change Ins mind he would be welcome to rejoin us, and 

 intimated to Mozinkwa that he must not be sold as a slave. 

 We are now among people inured to slave-dealing. We were 

 visited by men who had been as far as Tete or Nyungwe, and 

 were told that we were but ten days from that fort. One of 

 them, a Mashona man, who had come from a great distance to 

 the S.W., was anxious to accompany us to the country of the 

 white men ; he had travelled far, and I found that he had also 

 knowledge of the English tribe, and of then hatred to the trade 

 in slaves. He told Sekwebu that the " English were men," an 

 emphasis being put upon the term men, which leaves the impres- 

 sion that others are, as they express it in speaking scornfully, 



