iv.] MORAL CONDITION. 131 



The march of these Mantatees for hundreds of miles 

 might have been traced by human bones. 



He met with the custom in Namaqua-land, of the parri- 

 cide of parents by their children, when too old to do any- 

 thing; leaving them to starve in the desert. He once fell 

 in with a mother so abandoned 1 . 



Of the cruelty practised by the Matabele against the 

 Bakone tribes, the following eloquent account was given by 

 one of the latter, to Mr Moffat, in answer to an inquiry 

 about some ruins, which he saw scattered over a plain in 

 the neighbourhood of the Moselekatse's capital. The com- 

 mencement of this native's speech states that he himself 

 beheld the disaster — that this was the home of the chief of 

 the blue-coloured cattle, whose people were numerous and 

 brave — going on to say : " The noise of their song was 

 hushed in night, and their hearts were filled with dismay. 

 They saw the clouds ascend from the plains. It was the 

 smoke of burning towns. The confusion of a whirlwind 

 was in the heart of the great chief of the blue-coloured 

 cattle. The shout was raised, ' They are friends;' but they 

 shouted again, ' They are foes,' till their near approach pro- 

 claimed them naked Matabele. The men seized their arms, 

 and rushed out, as if to chase the antelope. The onset was 

 as the voice of lightning, and their spears as the shaking of 

 a forest in the autumn storm. The Matabele lions raised 

 the shout of death, and flew upon their victims. It was 

 the shout of victory. Their hissing and hollow groans told 

 their progress among the dead. A few moments laid hun- 

 dreds on the ground. The clash of shields was the signal 

 of triumph. Our people fled with their cattle to the top of 

 yonder mount. The Matabele entered the town with the 

 roar of the lion ; they pillaged and fired the houses, speared 

 the mothers, and cast their infants to the flames. The sun 

 went down. The victors emerged from the smoking plain, 

 1 Missionary Labours, &c. p. 133. 



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