304 
DECEIT AND FALSEHOOD. 
30 June, 
well during the time they were with us, but to give them a large 
portion to take home. 
They informed me that MakrdkJci, the chief of the Mdibues *, a 
division of the Barolong tribe, had fled, together with Mokkaba chief 
of the Nudkketsies, farther into the Interior ; having heard that a body 
of white men were coming to take revenge on them for the alleged 
murder of the last English party which had visited their country. 
Thus, at my first entrance into their territory, I began to 
experience some part of that deceit and disregard for truth, which, 
although pervading more or less every African tribe, seem scarcely 
to be considered by the Bichuanas as a vice or as a disgraceful 
practice ; and which, in these countries, so deeply contaminate every 
class of society, that I afterwards proved by too many trials, that no 
man's word, not even the Chief's, could be relied on in any case where 
the least advantage was to be gained by falsehood. 
This report which now reached me, perhaps not accidentally, 
had not the least foundation in truth ; and therefore the mention of 
it might have been omitted, if the regularity and consistency of the 
journal did not require it to be noticed, in order to account for various 
proceedings, and for the colouring given to them. By adhering 
strictly to the daily record of the impressions and opinions of the 
moment, a more correct picture is given of our actual situation ; and 
the nature of a journey in the interior of Africa, is more faithfully 
displayed. From this adherence to the original journal, some con- 
tradictory facts and sentiments will occasionally be met with ; but the 
former are to be attributed to the difficulties which beset a traveller 
whenever he is reduced to the necessity of getting his information 
from the mouths of others ; and the latter, to that change of sentiment 
and opinion which was induced either by a change of circumstances 
* The es at the end of this and similar names, which in the singular end with a vowel, 
is not to be considered as belonging to the original word, but, as that plural termination 
which, in strictness, the English language requires ; although I have not ventured in every 
case to follow this rule, wishing rather to leave those words as much as possible in their 
Sichuana form. 
