42 
Seven Years in Central Africa. 
[Aug. 
BY THE CHOBE TO THE ZAMBESI. 
We are now close to the Chobe River. I shall never forget 
the effect that the first sight of that great stream had, not 
only upon myself, but also upon the poor men with me. What 
a feeling of disappointment came over me when I found that 
I was satisfied with only a few cups full, whereas I felt I could 
have drunk buckets full ! This morning, before starting, the men 
had a sort of religious service over their guns. Laying their 
firearms (six in all) down in a row, they all sat around them, and 
one began to sing a dirge and to tap each gun, while the rest 
were keeping time by beating the palm of one hand with the fist 
of the other; they then sprinkled the guns with water, and 
finished up with a long shout. This they repeated twice, saying 
it was to make their guns kill well. 
This evening the men returned with a young zebra. Now, at 
last, I have found out the reason why they have gone on so 
unwillingly for a day or so, and are loth to go down and camp on 
the Chobe, as I would wish. They have been hearing from the 
Masaroa that the Barotse are vowing destruction on the Basubia 
who fled to the Mababi, saying that when the rains fall they will 
come down and kill them all. It seems that the Barotse have 
been victorious over the Bashukulumbe, and are now scattering 
in all directions the inhabitants north of the Zambesi. The last 
news is that they are among the Batoka in the hills, and are 
killing them off. Oh, the terribleness of war ! When I was in 
Natal, the Boer war was threatening to break out again, and 
feeling was running high. I had scarcely arrived in the Transvaal 
when war broke out among the nations over the border, and 
I ran a narrow escape of being commanded for military service. 
On arriving at Shoshong, the first news I heard was that the 
Matabele were expected, and that in all directions the cattle 
of the Bamangwato were coming in. The morning after my 
arrival there all the men of the town were turned out on parade 
to prepare for immediate action, but news came in a few days 
that the Matabele had turned. At Mababi I heard of ravages 
and bloodshed quite near by a company of the Matabele. The 
Masaroa of a whole town, whom Tinka was expecting to come 
and hunt for him, were massacred ; and had the Matabele troop 
been a little stronger they would have come on to the Mababi. 
