Chap. XXVI. THE TRAVELLING PARTY. 3-i'J 



sativa). This pernicious weed has a very strong narcotic effect, 

 causing even a species of frenzy. It is extensively used by all 

 the tribes of the interior, though the violent fit of coughing 

 which follows a couple of puffs of smoke appears distressing 

 to a spectator. They have a disgusting practice of taking a 

 mouthful of water, and squirting it out together with the smoke, 

 and then uttering a string of half-incoherent sentences, usually 

 in self-praise. I was unable to prevail on Sekeletu and the 

 young Makololo to forego its use, although they cannot point 

 to an old man in the tribe who has been addicted to this 

 indulgence. Never having tried it, I cannot describe the 

 pleasurable effects it is said to produce, but the hachshish in 

 use among the Turks is simply an extract of the same plant, 

 and, like opium, produces different effects on different indi- 

 viduals. To some everything appears as it would if viewed 

 through a telescope, while to others things are wonderfully 

 magnified, and in passing over a straw they will lift up their 

 feet as if about to cross the trunk of a tree. 



We had a large number of the Batoka of Mokwine" in our 

 party, sent by Sekeletu to carry his tusks, and we also had 

 a small party of Bashubia and Barotse under Tuba Mokoro, 

 who had been furnished by Sekeletu on account of their 

 ability to swim. They carried their paddles with them, and, 

 as the Makololo suggested, were able to swim over the rivers 

 by night and steal canoes, if the inhabitants should be so 

 unreasonable as to refuse to lend them. The different parties 

 who composed my escort assorted together in messes, and 

 received their orders as well as their supplies of food through 

 their head-man. Each party knew its own spot in the 

 encampment : and as this always faced the west, being the 

 direction opposite to that from whence the prevailing winds 

 came, no time was lost in fixing the sheds of our encampment. 

 They each took it in turn to pull grass to make my bed, so 

 that I lay luxuriously. 



November 26th. — As the oxen could only move at night, in 

 consequence of a fear of the tsetse, I usually performed the 

 march by day on foot, while some of the men brought on the 

 oxen by night. On coming to the villages under Marimba, an 

 old man, we crossed the Unguesi, a rivulet which, like the 



