400 KINDNESS CONTINUED. 



whom he had put to rest and those for whom Mafale had per- 

 formed that last office. Nothing whatever marked the spot, 

 and, with the native idea of hiding the dead, it was said, " it will 

 soon be all overgrown with bushes, for no one will cultivate 

 there." None but Ma-Pulenyane approached the place: the 

 others stood at a respectful distance ; they invariably avoid every- 

 thing connected with death, and no such thing as taking portions 

 of human bodies to make charms of, as is the custom farther 

 north, has ever been known among the Makololo. 



When the wagon nvas left eight years before, several loose 

 articles, as the medicine-chest, magic lantern, tools, and books, 

 were given by Sekeletu into the charge of his wives. Every- 

 thing was now found in safety. The wagon was in sufficiently 

 good condition for the doctor to sleep in, though the covering 

 had partly rotted off, and, when the chief was absent at the 

 Barotse, the white ants had destroyed one of the wheels. Seke- 

 letu's wives, Seipone and Mantu, without being asked, cooked 

 abundance of good beef, and baked a large supply of little cakes 

 after the pattern which the Makololo, who went to Loanda, had 

 brought back to them. With gentle reproaches for not bringing 

 " Ma-Robert," or Mrs. Livingstone, they repeated some of the 

 prattle of her children in Sechuana, and said, "Are we never 

 more to know anything of them but their names ? " 



Sekeletu was well pleased with the various articles brought 

 for him, and inquired if a ship could not bring his sugar-mill 

 and the other goods which had been of necessity left behind at 

 Tete. On hearing that there was a possibility of a powerful 

 steamer ascending as far as Sinamane's, but never above the 

 Grand Victoria falls, he asked, with charming simplicity, if a 

 cannon could not blow away the falls, so as to allow the vessel 

 to come up to Sesheke. 



He was also as urgent as ever that the doctor would make 

 his home with him ; but he could not offer such inducements as 

 had surrounded the home of his illustrious father. His feeble 

 health and foolish policy had left very little of the man or the 

 chieftain about him. And though he recognized the importance 

 of seeking a home in a more salubrious atmosphere he trembled 

 at the thought of quitting his fastnesses, at a time when the 

 growing disaffection of the subject tribes threatened to leave him 



