Chap. VII. MAN LION. 159 



cold, with heavy dews and occasional showers, and we had 

 several cases of fever. Some of the men deserted every night, 

 and we fully expected that all who had children would prefer 

 to return to Tette, for little ones are well known to prove the 

 strongest ties, even to slaves. It was useless informing them, 

 that if they wanted to return they had only to come and tell 

 us so ; we should not be angry with them for preferring Tette 

 to their own country. Contact with slaves had destroyed their 

 sense of honour, they would not go in daylight, but de- 

 camped in the night, only in one instance, however, taking 

 our goods, though, in two more, they carried off their 

 comrades' property. By the time we had got well into the 

 Kebrabasa hills, thirty men, nearly a third of the party, had 

 turned back, and it became evident that, if many more left 

 us, Sekeletu's goods could not be carried up. At last, when 

 the refuse had fallen away, no more desertions took place. 



Stopping one afternoon at a Kebrabasa village, a man, 

 who pretended to be able to change himself into a lion, came 

 to salute us. Smelling the gunpowder from a gun which 

 had been discharged, he went on one side to get out of 

 the wind of the piece, trembling in a most artistic manner, 

 but quite overacting his part. The Makololo explained to 

 us that he was a Pondoro, or a man who can change his 

 form at will, and added that he trembles when he smells 

 gunpowder. " Do you not see how he is trembling now ? " 

 We told them to ask him to change himself at once into a 

 lion, and we would give him a cloth for the performance. 

 " Oh, no," replied they ; " if we tell him so, he may change him- 

 self and come when we are asleep and kill us." Having similar 

 superstitions at home, they readily became as firm believers 

 in the Pondoro as the natives of the village. We were told 

 that he assumes the form of a lion and remains in the woods 



