476 ANALYSIS OF MAKOI.01,0 CHARACTER. 



me to ascertain their moral status, better than a mere 

 religious teacher could do. They do not attempt to 

 hide the evil, as men often do, from their spiritual instruc- 

 tors ; but I have found it difficult to come to a conclusion 

 on their character. They sometimes perform actions 

 remarkably good, and sometimes as strangely the opposite. 

 I have been unable to ascertain the motive for the good, 

 or account for the callousness of conscience with which 

 they perpetrate the bad. After long observation, I came 

 to the conclusion that they are just such a strange mixture 

 of good and evil, as men are everywhere else. There is 

 not among them an approach to that constant stream of 

 benevolence flowing from the rich to the poor which we have 

 in England, nor yet the unostentatious attentions which we 

 have among our own poor to each other. Yet there are 

 frequent instances of genuine kindness and liberality, as 

 well as actions of an opposite character. The rich show 

 kindness to the poor, in expectation of services, and a 

 poor person who has no relatives, will seldom be supplied 

 even with water in illness, and, when dead, will be dragged 

 out to be devoured by the hyaenas, instead of being buried. 

 Relatives' alone will condescend to touch a dead body. 

 It would be easy to enumerate instances of inhumanity 

 which I have witnessed. An interesting-looking girl came 

 to my waggon one day, in a state of nudity, and almost a 

 skeleton. She was a captive from another tribe, and had 

 been neglected by the man who claimed her. Having 

 supplied her wants, I made inquiry for him, and found 

 that he had been unsuccessful m raising a crop of corn, 

 and had no food to give her. I volunteered to take her ; 

 but he said he would allow me to feed her and make her 

 fat, and then take her away. I protested against this 

 heartlessness ; and as he said he could " not part with his 

 child," I was precluded from attending to her wants. In 

 a day or two she was lost sight of. She had gone out a 

 little way from the town, and, being too weak to return, 

 had been cruelly left to perish. Another day I saw a 

 poor boy going to the water to drink, apparently in a 

 starving condition. This case I brought before the chief 

 in council, and found that his emaciation was ascribed to 

 disease and want combined. He was not one of the 

 Makololo, but a member of a subdued tribe. I showed 

 them that any one professing to claim a child, and refusing 

 proper nutriment, would be guilty of his death. Sekeletu 



