382 NATIVE LANGUAGE. CHAP. XIV. 



side, loungingly, or smartly, swaggeringly, swinging the 

 arms, or only one arm, head down or up, or otherwise ; 

 each of these modes of walking was expressed by a par- 

 ticular verb ; and more words were used to designate the 

 different varieties of fools than we ever tried to count. 



Mr. Moffat has translated the whole Bible into the 

 language of the Bechuana, and has diligently studied this 

 tongue for the last forty-four years ; and, though knowing 

 far more of the language than any of the natives who 

 have been reared on the Mission-station of Kuruman, he 

 does not pretend to have mastered it fully even yet. 

 However copious it may be in terms of which we do not 

 feel the necessity, it is poor in others, as in abstract 

 terms, and words used to describe mental operations. 



Our third day's march ended in the afternoon of the 

 27th September, 1863, at the village of Chinanga on the 

 banks of a branch of the Loangwa. A large, rounded 

 mass of granite, a thousand feet high, called Nombe rume, 

 stands on the plain a few miles off. It is quite remark- 

 able, because it has so little vegetation on it. Several 

 other granitic hills stand near it, ornamented with trees, 

 like most heights of this country, and a heap of blue 

 mountains appears away in the north. 



The effect of the piercing winds upon the men had 

 never been got rid of. Several had been unable to carry a 

 load ever since we ascended to the highlands ; we had lost 

 one, and another poor lad was so ill as to cause us great 

 anxiety. By waiting in this village, which was so old 

 that it was full of vermin, all became worse. Our 

 European food was entirely expended, and native meal, 

 though finely ground, has so many sharp angular particles 

 in it, that it brought back dysentery, from which we had 

 suffered so much in May. We could scarcely obtain food 

 for the men. The headman of this village of Chinanga 

 was off in a foray against some people further north to 



