3rai\ II. HOUSEBUILDING AND HOUSEKEEPING. 29 



hundred of our school-children into slavery. Tne people 

 under Sechele defended themselves till the approach of night 

 enabled them to flee to the mountains; and having killed 

 a number of the enemy, the first ever slain by Bechuanas, 1 

 had the credit of having taught them to destroy Boers ! My 

 house was plundered in revenge. English gentlemen, who 

 had come in the footsteps of Mr. Gumming to hunt in the 

 country beyond, and had left large quantities of stores in the 

 keeping of the natives, were robbed of everything; and when 

 they came back to Kolobeng found the skeletons of the guar- 

 dians strewed about the place. The books of a good library — 

 my solace in our solitude — were torn to pieces and scattered 

 about. My stock of medicines was smashed ; and all our 

 furniture and clothing were carried off and sold by public 

 auction to pay the expenses of the foray. 



A short sketch of African housekeeping may not prove unin- 

 teresting. The entire absence of shops obliged us to make 

 everything we needed from the raw materials. If you want 

 bricks to build a house you must proceed to the field, cut 

 down a tree, and saw it into planks to make the brick-moulds. 

 The people cannot assist you much ; for, though willing to 

 labour for wages, the Bakwains have a curious inability to 

 make things square. As with all Bechuanas, their own dwell- 

 ings are round. I erected three large houses at different 

 times, and every brick and stick had to be put square by my 

 own hand. A house of decent dimensions, costing an immense 

 amount of manual labour, is necessary to secure the respect 

 of the natives. 



Bread is often baked in an extempore oven constructed by 

 scooping out a large hole in an anthill, and using a slab of 

 stone for a door. Another plan is to make a good fire on the 

 ground, and when it is thoroughly heated to place the dough 

 in a short-handled frying-pan, or simply on the hot ashes. A 

 metal pot is then put over it, and a small fire is kindled on 

 the top. 



We made our own candles, and soap was procured from the 

 ashes of the plant salsola, or else from wood-ashes, which in 

 Africa contain so little alkaline matter that the boiling of 

 successive leys has to bo continued for a month or six weokfi 

 before tbe fat is saponified. There was not much hardship in 



