Chap. IY. 
MEETING WITH SEBITUANE. 
83 
countiy and catch some specimens of tsetse on the animal, in ten 
days afterwards the horse was dead. 
The well-known disgust wliich the tsetse shows to animal 
excreta, as exhibited when a village is placed in its habitat, has 
been observed and turned to account by some of the doctors. 
They mix droppings of animals, human rndk, and some medicines 
together, and smear the animals that are about to pass thi’ough a 
tsetse district; but this, though it proves a preventive at the time, 
is not permanent. There is no cure yet knovm for the disease. 
A careless herdsman allowing a large number of cattle to wander 
into a tsetse district loses ail except the calves; and Sebituane 
once lost nearly the entire cattle of liis tribe—very many thou¬ 
sands—by unwittingly coming under its influence. Inoculation 
does not insure immunity, as animals wliich have been slightly 
bitten in one year may perish by a greater number of bites in 
the next; but it is probable that with the mcrease of guns the 
game will perish, as has happened in the south, and the tsetse, 
deprived of food, may become extinct simultaneously with the 
larger animals. 
The Makololo whom we met on the Chobe were delighted to see 
us; and as their chief Sebituane was about twenty miles down the 
river, Mr. Oswell and I proceeded in canoes to his temporary 
residence. He had come from the Barotse tovii of Haliele down 
to Sesheke as soon as he heard of white men being in search of 
him, and now came one hundred mdes more to bid us wMcome 
into liis country. He was upon an island with ail his principal 
men around him, and engaged in singing when we arrived. It 
was more like church music than the sing-song e e e, se se 8e, of 
the Bechuanas in the south; and they continued the tune for 
some seconds after we approached. We informed liim of the difii- 
culties we had encountered, and how glad we were that they were 
ah at an end by at last reacliing liis presence. He signified his 
own joy, and added, “ Your cattle are all bitten by the tsetse and 
win certainly die; but never mind, I have oxen and wM give you 
as many as you need.” We, in our ignorance, then thought that, 
as so few tsetse had bitten them, no great mischief would follow. 
He then presented us with an ox and a jar of honey as food, and 
handed us over to the care of Mahale, who had headed the party 
to Kolobeng, and would now fain appropriate to himself the whole 
G 2 
