80 
THE BANAJOA —THE TSETSE. 
Chap. IY. 
his importance before his friends, he walked up boldly and com¬ 
manded our whole cavalcade to stop, and to bring forth fire and 
tobacco, while he coolly sat down and smoked his pipe. It was 
such an inimitably natural way of showing off, that we all stopped 
to admire the acting, and, though he had left us previously in 
the lurch, we all liked Shobo, a fine specimen of that wonderful 
people, the Bushmen. 
Next day we came to a village of Banajoa, a tribe which 
extends far to the eastward. They were living on the borders 
of a marsh in which the Mababe terminates. They had lost their 
crop of corn (holcus sorghum), and now subsisted almost entirely 
on the root called “tsitla,” a kind of aroidoea, which contains 
a very large quantity of sweet-tasted starch. When dried, pounded 
into meal, and allowed to ferment, it forms a not unpleasant 
article of food. The women shave all the hau’ off their heads, 
and seem darker than the Bechuanas. Their huts were built 
on poles, and a fire is made beneath by night, in order that the 
smoke may drive away the mosquitoes, which abound on the 
Mababe and TamunakTe more than in any other part of the 
country. The head man of this village, Majane, seemed a little 
wanting in ability; but had had wit enough to promote a younger 
member of the family to the office. This person, the most like 
the ugly negro of the tobacconists’ shops I ever saw, was called 
Moroa Majane, or son of Majane, and proved an active guide 
across the river Sonta, and to the banks of the Chobe, in the 
country of Sebituane. We had come through another tsetse 
district by night, and at once passed our cattle over to the northern 
bank to preserve them from its ravages. 
A few remarks on The Tsetse, or Glossina morsitans, may here 
be appropriate. It is not much larger than the comnion house¬ 
fly, and is nearly of the same brown colour as the common 
honey-bee; the after part of the body has three or four yellow 
bars across it; the wings project beyond tliis part considerably, 
and it is remarkably alert, avoiding most dexterously all attempts 
to capture it with the hand, at comnion temperatures; in the 
cool of the mornings and evenings it is less agile. Its peculiar 
buzz when once heard can never be forgotten by the traveller 
whose means of locomotion are domestic animals; for it is well 
known that the bite of this poisonous insect is certain death to 
