480 AN AFRICAN THUNDERSTORM. 



a youth, Motibe's family had been attacked by a party of 

 Boers : he hid himself in an anteater's hole, but was 

 drawn out and thrashed with a whip of hippopotamus- 

 hide. When enjoined to live in peace, he would reply, 

 " Teach the Boers to lay down their arms first." Yet 

 Motibe on other occasions seemed to feel the difference 

 between those who are Christians indeed, and those who 

 are so only in name. In all our discussions we parted 

 good friends. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



On the 3rd of November we bade adieu to our friends at 

 Xinyanti, accompanied by Sekeletu and about 200 

 followers. We were all fed at his expense, and he took 

 cattle for this purpose from every station we came to. 

 The principal men of the Makololo ; Lebeole, Ntlarie, 

 Nkwatlele, &c, were also of the party. We passed 

 through the patch of the tsetse, which exists between 

 Linyanti and Sesheke, by night. The majority of the 

 company went on by daylight, in order to prepare our 

 beds. Sekeletu and I, with about forty young men, 

 waited outside the tsetse till dark. We then went forward, 

 and about ten o'clock it became so pitchy dark, that both 

 norses and men were completely blinded. The Hghtning 

 spread over the sky, forming eight or ten branches at a 

 time, in shape exactly like those of a tree. This, with 

 great volumes of sheet-hghtning, enabled us at times to 

 see the whole country. The intervals between the flashes 

 were so densely dark, as to convey the idea of stone - 

 blindness. The horses trembled, cried out, and turned 

 round, as if searching for each other, and every new flash 

 revealed the men taking different directions, laughing, 

 and stumbling against each other. The thunder was of 

 that tremendously loud kind only to be heard in tropical 

 countries, and which, friends from India have assured 

 me, is louder in Africa than any they have ever heard 

 ►elsewhere. Then came a pelting rain, which completed 

 •our confusion. After the intense heat of the day, we soon 

 felt miserably cold, and turned aside to a fire we saw in 

 the distance. This had been made by some people on 

 their march ; for this path is seldom without numbers of 



