74 LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



with some powder and a bullet mould thrown in. The value of the single tusk 

 was £30, and the value of a musket £16. The ivory was originally bought by 

 Sekomi on far better terms than these. They were procured from the Bushmen 

 for a few beads, and small articles of daily use amomg them, and they were 

 carried for many miles by a colony of poor Bakalahari who were subject to 

 him, and who did all his carrying almost without fee or reward. 



Previous to this, muskets were almost unknown among them, and the 

 delight of the chief and his head men at becoming possessed of some, was 

 similar to that of a boy when he gets his first pop-gun. " He insisted on 

 discharging each of the muskets as he bought it. It was amusing to see the 

 manner in which he performed this operation. Throwing back his kaross, and 

 applying the stock to his naked shoulder, he shut his good eye, and kept the 

 wall-eye open, to the intense amusement of the Hottentots who were his 

 instructors on the occasion. Each report caused the utmost excitement and 

 merriment among the warriors, who pressed forward and requested that they 

 also might be permitted to try their skill with these novel implements 

 of war." 



Sekomi was visited by Mr. James Chapman, author of " Travels in the 

 interior of South Africa," several years after the period of Mr. Cumming's 

 visit. He did not appear to have profited much by the visits of civilized 

 travellers. Mr. Chapman entertained him to breakfast. He says : — 



" He seemed not at all at home in the use of knife and fork. Plunging 

 the fork into his meat, he held it up in the air, and cut slices from it, which 

 went flying in all directions, falling on the heads of his admiring followers. 

 I advised him to put the meat on his plate and cut it there ; but he soon upset 

 the plate, which lay in his lap, and, nearly plunging the fork into his thigh, 

 spilt the gravy over his naked legs, to be licked off by his nearest follower." 

 The chief had with him a sorcerer, or medicine-man, who is thus described: — 



" His neck was ornamented with armlets of lions', lizards', and other 

 reptiles' claws, with snakes' heads and roots, supposed to possess infallible 

 remedies against injuries which the evil-disposed may contemplate against 

 the chief or his tribe. Four small pieces of ivory, figured over with black 

 spots, are used as dice ; and at any time when they feel disposed to look into 

 the past or future these dice are consulted, the natives believing implicitly in 

 the pretended prophecies, instead of obeying the dictates of reason and 

 prudence when assailed by danger." 



Mr. Chapman relates an instance of magnanimous conduct on the part 

 of Sekomi in sparing the life of a Boer, after the attack on Sechele's town had 

 exasperated the natives to such a degree that every Boer caught on their 

 territory was remorselessly slain. Vilogen, a Boer, who had been in the habit 

 of visiting and trading with Sekomi, arrived with Mr. Chapman at the head- 

 quarters of the chief immediately after he had heard of the attack upon Sechele 



