9a THE CHIEF SEKOMI. Chap. VII. 



happen if the front teeth were large. The shell is then 

 ejected. Some snakes are eaten, such as the python, metse 

 pallah, or tari, of which the largest specimens are about 15 01 

 20 feet in length. They live on small animals, chiefly the 

 rodentia, though occasionally the steinbuck and pallah fall 

 victims, and are sucked into its comparatively little mouth in 

 boa-constrictor fashion. To man they are perfectly harmless. 

 One which we shot through the spine was 11 feet 10 inches 

 long, and as thick as a man's leg. It was still capable of 

 lifting itself up about five feet high, and opened its mouth in 

 a threatening manner, but its inclination was to crawl away. 

 The flesh is much relished by the Bakalahari and Bushmen. 

 Each carries away his portion on his shoulders like a log 

 of wood. 



Some of the Bayeiye we met at Sebituane's ford pretended 

 to be unaffected by the bite of serpents, and lacerated their 

 arms with the teeth of the harmless kinds. Dr. Andrew 

 Smith put their sincerity to the test by offering them the 

 fangs of a poisonous variety, and found they shrank from the 

 experiment. 



When we reached the Bamangwato the chief Sekomi was 

 particularly friendly, brought all his people to our religious 

 services, and explained his reasons for obliging some English- 

 men to surrender up to him a horse. "They would not sell 

 him any powder, though they had plenty ; so he compelled 

 them to give it and the horse for nothing. He would not 

 deny the extortion to me; that would be swindling." He 

 thus thought extortion better than swindling ; but his ideas of 

 honesty are the lowest I have met with in any Bechuana 

 chief. Englishmen have always refused to countenance the 

 idea, which would hereafter prove troublesome, that payment 

 ought to be made for passage through a country. 



All the Bechuana and Caffre tribes south of the Zambesi 

 practise circumcision (bogttera), but the rites observed are 

 carefully concealed. At Bamangwato I was once a spectator 

 of the second part of the ceremony, called " sechu." Just at 

 the dawn of day, a row of boys, nearly fourteen years of age, 

 stood naked in the kotla. Each had a pair of sandals as a 

 shield on his hands. The men, equally naked, were ranged 

 opposite to them, and were armed with long wand*, of a tough 



