186 molele's village. Chap. VII. 



influences which unhappily, from infancy, had been at 

 work on his mind. The native eye was more penetrating 

 than ours ; for the expression of our men was, " He has 

 drunk the blood of men — you may see it in his eyes." He 

 made no further difficulty about Mr. Baldwin; but the 

 week after we left he inflicted a severe wound on the head 

 of one of his wives with his rhinoceros-horn club. She, 

 being of a good family, left him, and we subsequently met 

 her and another of his wives proceeding up the country. 



The ground is strewn with agates for a number of 

 miles above the Falls ; but the fires, which burn off the 

 grass yearly, have injured most of those on the surface. 

 Our men were delighted to hear that they do as well as 

 flints for muskets ; and this, with the new ideas of the 

 value of gold (dalama) and malachite, that they had 

 acquired at Tette, made them conceive that we were not 

 altogether silly in picking up and looking at stones. 



Marching up the river, we crossed the Lekone at its 

 confluence, about eight miles above the island Kalai, and 

 went on to a village opposite the Island Chundu. Nam- 

 bowe, the headman, is one of the Matebele or Zulus, who 

 have had to flee from the anger of Moselekatse, to take 

 refuge with the Makololo. 



We spent Sunday, the 12th, at the village of Molele, a 

 tall old Batoka, who was proud of having formerly been 

 a great favourite with Sebituane. In coming hither we 

 passed through patches of forest abounding in all sorts 

 of game. The elephants' tusks, placed over graves, are 

 now allowed to decay, and the skulls, which the former 

 Batoka stuck on poles to ornament their villages, not 

 being renewed, now crumble into dust. Here the famine, 

 of which we had heard, became apparent, Molele's people 

 being employed in digging up the tsitla root out of the 

 marshes, and cutting out the soft core of the young palm- 

 trees, for food. 



