Chap. VII. SEKELETU's MESSENGER. 189 



and purchase a horse. He again declined to interfere. 

 None were to come up to Sekeletu but the Doctor; and 

 all the men who had had smallpox at Tette, three years 

 ago, were to go back to Moshobotwane, and he would 

 sprinkle medicine over them, to drive away the infection, 

 and prevent it spreading in the tribe. Mochokotsa was 

 told to say to Sekeletu that the disease was known of 

 old to white men, and we even knew the medicine to 

 prevent it ; and, were there any danger now, we should be 

 the first to warn him of it. "Why did not he go himself 

 to have Moshobotwane sprinkle medicine to drive away 

 his leprosy. We were not afraid of his disease, nor of the 

 fever that had killed the teachers and many Makololo at 

 Liny an ti. As this attempt at quarantine was evidently 

 the suggestion of native doctors to increase their own 

 importance, we added that we had no food, and would 

 hunt next day for game, and the day after ; and, should 

 we be still ordered purification by their medicine, we 

 should then return to our own country. 



The message was not all of our dictation, our com- 

 panions interlarded it with their own indignant protests, 

 and said some strong things in the Tette dialect about 

 these " doctor things " keeping them back from seeing 

 their father; when to their surprise Mochokotsa told 

 them he knew every word they were saying, as he was 

 of the tribe Bazizulu, and defied them to deceive him 

 by any dialect, either of the Mashona on the east, or of 

 the Mambari on the west. Mochokotsa then repeated 

 our message twice, to be sure that he had it every word, 

 and went back again. These chiefs' messengers have 

 most retentive memories ; they carry messages of con- 

 siderable length great distances, and deliver them almost 

 word for word. Two or three usually go together, and 

 when on the way the message is rehearsed every night, in 

 order that the exact words may be kept to. One of the 



