136 CHIKWAXITSELA. CHAP. V. 



declined to trade with him. He threatened to take the 

 ivory by force, if they would not sell it ; but that same 

 night the ivory and the women were spirited out of the 

 village, and only a large body of armed men remained. 

 The trader, fearing that he might come off second best if 

 it came to blows, immediately departed. Chikwanitsela, 

 or Sekuanangila, is the paramount chief of some fifty miles 

 of the northern bank of the Zambesi in this locality. He 

 lives on the opposite, or southern side, and there his terri- 

 tory is still more extensive. We sent him a present from 

 Senga, and were informed by a messenger next morning 

 that he had a cough and could not come over to see us. 

 "And has his present a cough too," remarked one of our 

 party, " that it does not come to us ? Is this the way 

 your chief treats strangers, receives their present, and 

 sends them no food in return ? " Our men thought Chik- 

 wanitsela an uncommonly stingy fellow ; but, as it was 

 possible that some of them might yet wish to return this 

 way, they did not like to scold him more than this, which 

 was sufficiently to the point. 



Men and women were busily engaged in preparing the 

 ground for the November planting. Large game was 

 abundant ; herds of elephants and buffaloes came down to 

 the river in the night, but were a long way off by day- 

 light. They soon adopt this habit in places where they 

 are hunted. 



The plains we travel over are constantly varying in 

 breadth, according as the furrowed and wooded hills 

 approach or recede from the river. On the southern side 

 we see the hill Bungwe, and the long, level, wooded ridge 

 Nyangombe, the first of a series bending from the S.E. to 

 the N.W. past the Zambesi. We shot an old pallah on the 

 16th, and found that the poor animal had been visited 

 with more than the usual share of animal afflictions. He 

 was stone-blind in both eyes, had several tumours, and a 



