1812. 
MOLLEMMI. — A WOMAN AND HER TWO CHILDREN. 
349 
people were exceedingly unwilling to make any further delay, as 
they, and even Mattivi, believed the report, that I had finally re- 
turned to the Colony. But SerrdMdu the present chief's uncle and 
brother to Mulihaban, was the principal adviser that they should 
still continue to wait for me. For, having been to Klaarwater in the 
interval of my journey to Graaffreynet, he had seen my waggons 
there, and was then assured by Muchunka that it was my fixed in- 
tention to visit Mattivi. He left with him injunctions to use every 
argument to persuade me to come as soon as possible ; as he had 
many things to say to me. Our visitor further added that MoUemmi *, 
(for that was the name of Mattivi's elder brother,) was very impatient 
to accompany me back to Cape Town. 
By such information I was enabled to prepare myself for the 
first interview with the chief, and to consider my answers, and the 
most judicious mode of proceeding, so as to undeceive him without 
exposing the plan of my future movements ; for I had the satisfac- 
tion to perceive that he knew nothing of my intention to travel 
farther northward. 
Not long after the herdsman, came a woman with her two children, 
and also took up her abode with us during our stay at Sikkloniani. 
Her eldest child was a girl about six years old ; the other was much 
younger. She appeared to be about thirty, and told us that she had 
long been deserted by her husband, who left her that he miglit take 
another wife. Since that time she had wandered about with her two 
children from place to place, making any hut her quarters as long- 
as its owners were willing, or able, to share their food with her. 
To subsist on charity among the Bichuanas, is a melancholy depend- 
ance ; but this instance serves, at least, to prove the existence of this 
virtue, though hospitalitij, which Hottentots extend to a fault among 
themselves, and often exercise towards other tribes, forms, it would 
seem, no part of the moral duty of men of this nation. 
* This name was sometimes, though less frequently, pronounced Mollemo or 
Mollema, with the accent on the first syllable. 
