LONGING FOR PEACE. 



225 



word is " peace on earth and good- will to men." It is not 

 wonderful that they seized the idea of peace so eagerly. Their 

 country has been visited by successive scourges during the last 

 half century, and they are now "a nation scattered and peeled." 

 When Sebituane came, the cattle were innumerable, and yet 

 these were the remnants only, left by a chief called Pingola, 

 who came from the northeast. He swept across the whole ter- 

 ritory inhabited by his cattle-loving countrymen, devouring 

 oxen, cows, and calves, without retaining a single head. He 

 seems to have been actuated by a simple love of conquest, and 

 is an instance of what has occurred two or three times in every 

 century in this country from time immemorial. A man of more 

 energy or ambition than his fellows rises up and conquers a 

 large territory, but as soon as he dies the power he built is gone, 

 and his reign, having been one of terror, is not perpetuated. 

 This and the want of literature have prevented the establish- 

 ment of any great empire in the interior of Africa. Pingola 

 effected his conquests by carrying numbers of smith's bellows 

 with him. The arrow-heads were heated before shooting into 

 a town, and when a wound was inflicted on either man or beast 

 great confusion ensued. After Pingola came Sebituane, and 

 after him the Matebele of Mosilikatse ; and these successive in- 

 roads have reduced the Batoka to a state in which they naturally 

 rejoice at the prospect of deliverance and peace. 



They were remarkably generous with their offers of food, and 

 great numbers came out continually to greet the " white man." 

 It could only be painful to a man more anxious to benefit his 

 kind than to witness their follies, to see so many human beings 

 exhibiting even in their salutations their extreme degradation. 

 Few customs of men are more arbitrary than those which relate 

 to the reception of visitors, but of all hardly anything can sur- 

 pass in absurdity that of this tribe. They throw themselves on 

 the ground, on their backs, and, rolling from side to side, slap 

 the outside of their thighs as expressions of thankfulness and 

 welcome, uttering the words, " kina bomba." And the more 

 Dr. Livingstone attempted to prevent them, the more violently 

 they did him their eccentric reverence. This performance on 

 the part of men totally unclothed was a scene too painfully un- 

 manly for amusement, rather one to provoke the deepest sorrow. 



