BARK CANOES. 33 1 



CHAPTER XIX. 



24th. — Ionga Panza'S sons agreed to act as guides into 

 the territory of the Portuguese if I would give them the 

 shell given by Shinte. I was strongly averse to this, and 

 especially to give it beforehand ; but yielded to the 

 entreaty of my people to appear as if showing confidence 

 in these hopeful youths. They urged that they wished 

 to leave the shell with their wives, as a sort of payment 

 to them for enduring their husbands' absence so long. 

 Having delivered the precious shell, we went west-by- 

 north to the river Chika;pa, which here (lat. io° 22' S.) 

 is forty or fifty yards wide, and at present was deep ; 

 it was seen flowing over a rocky broken cataract with great 

 noise about half a mile above our ford. We were ferried 

 over in a canoe, made out of a single piece of bark sewed 

 together at the ends, and having sticks placed in it at 

 different parts to act as ribs. The word Chikapa means 

 bark or skin ; and as this is the only river in which we 

 saw this kind of canoe used, and we heard that this stream 

 is so low during most of the year as to be easily fordable, 

 it probably derives its name from the use made of the 

 bark canoes when it is in flood. We now felt the loss 

 of our pontoon, for the people to whom the canoe be- 

 longed, made us pay once when we began to cross, then 

 a second time when half of us were over, and a third time 

 when all were over but my principal man Pitsane and 

 myself. Loyanke took off his cloth and paid my passage 

 with it. The Makololo always ferried their visitors over 

 rivers without pay, and now began to remark that they 

 must in future fleece the Mambari as these Chiboque 

 had done to us ; they had all been loud in condemnation 

 of the meanness, and when I asked if they could descend 

 to be equally mean, I was answered that they would only 

 do it in revenge. They liked to have a plausible excuse 

 for meanness. 



Next morning our guides went only about a mile, and 

 then told us they would return home. I expected this 

 when paying them beforehand, in accordance with the 

 entreaties of the Makololo, who are rather ignorant of 

 the world. Very energetic remonstrances were addressed 

 to the guides, but they slipped off one by one in the thick 



