134 SKKOMI'S IDEAS OF HONESTY. 



teeth were large. The shell is then ejected. Others 

 appear to be harmless, and even edible. Of the latter 

 sort is the large python, metse pallah, or tari. The largest 

 specimens of this are about 15 or 20 feet in length ; they 

 are perfectly harmless, and live on small animals, chiefly 

 the rodentia ; occasionally the steinbuck and pallah fall 

 victims, and are sucked into its comparatively small 

 mouth in boa-constrictor fashion. One we shot was 11 

 feet 10 inches long, and as thick as a man's leg. When 

 shot through the spine, it was capable of lifting itself up 

 about five feet high, and opened its mouth in a threatening 

 manner, but the poor thing was more inclined to crawl 

 away. The flesh is much relished by the Bakalahari and 

 Bushmen : they carry away each his portion, like logs of 

 wood, over their shoulders. 



Some of the Bayeiye we met at Sebituane's ford pre- 

 tended to be unaffected by the bite of serpents, and showed 

 the feat of lacerating their arms with the teeth of such as 

 are unfurnished with the poison-fangs. They also swallow 

 the poison, by way of gaining notoriety ; but Dr. Andrew 

 Smith put the sincerity of such persons to the test by 

 offering them the fangs of a really poisonous variety, 

 and found they shrank from the experiment. 



When we reached the Bamangwato, the chief Sekomi 

 was particularly friendly, collected all his people to the 

 religious services we held, and explained his reasons for 

 compelling some Englishmen to pay him a horse. " They 

 would not sell him any powder, though they had plenty ; 

 so he compelled them to give it and the horse for nothing. 

 He would not deny the extortion to me ; that would be 

 ' boherehere ' (swindling)." He thus thought extortion 

 better than swindling. I could not detect any difference 

 in the morality of the two transactions, but Sekomi's 

 ideas of honesty are the lowest I have met with in 

 any Bechuana chief, and this instance is mentioned as 

 the only approach to demanding payment for leave to 

 pass that I have met with in the South. In all other 

 cases the difficulty has been to get a chief to give us men 

 to show the way, and the payment has only been for 

 guides. Englishmen have always very properly avoided 

 giving that idea to the native mind, which we shall here- 

 after find prove troublesome, that payment ought to be 

 made for passage through a country. 



All the Bechuana and Caffre tribes south of the Zam- 



