6 SECHELE. 



Thus Mokwdin is a single person of the Bakwain tribe, 

 and I^ekoa is a single white man or Englishman — Makoa 

 being Englishmen. 



I attached myself to the tribe called Bakuena, or 

 Bakwains, the chief of which, named Sechele, was then 

 living with his people at a place called Shokuane. I was 

 from the first struck by his intelligence, and by the marked 

 manner in which we both felt drawn to each other. As 

 this remarkable man has not only embraced Christianity, 

 but expounds its doctrines to his people, I will here give 

 a brief sketch of his career. 



His great-grandfather Mochoasele was a great traveller, 

 and the first that ever told the Bakwains of the existence 

 of white men. In his father's lifetime two white travellers, 

 whom I suppose to have been Dr. Cowan and Captain 

 Donovan, passed through the country (in 1808), and 

 descending the river Limp6po, were, with their party, all 

 cut off by fever. The rain-makers there, fearing lest their 

 waggons might drive away the rain, ordered them to be 

 thrown into the river. This is the true account of the end 

 of that expedition, as related to me by the son of the chief 

 at whose village they perished. He remembered, when 

 a boy, eating part of one of the horses, and said it tasted 

 like zebra's flesh. Thus, they were not killed by the 

 Bangwaketse, as reported, for they passed the Bakwains 

 all well. The Bakwains were then rich in cattle ; and 

 as one of the many evidences of the desiccation of the 

 country, streams are pointed out where thousands and 

 thousands of cattle formerly drank, but in which water 

 now never flows, and where a single herd could not find 

 fluid for its support. 



When Sechele was still a boy, his father, also called 

 Mochoasele, was murdered by his own people for taking 

 to himself the wives of his rich underchiefs. The children 

 being spared, their friends invited Sebitudne, the chief of 

 the Makoldlo, who was then in those parts, to reinstate 

 them in the chieftainship Sebituane surrounded the 

 town of the Bakwains by night ; and just as it began to 

 dawn his herald proclaimed in a loud voice that he had 

 come to revenge the death of Mochoasele. This was 

 followed by Sebituane's people beating loudly on their 

 shields all round the town. The panic was tremendous, 

 and the rush like that from a theatre on fire, while the 

 Makololo used their javelins on the terrified Bakwains 



