Chap. IX. 
SEKELETU’S PEESENT. 
189 
the mysterious book. To all who have not acquired it, the know¬ 
ledge of letters is quite unfathomable; there is nought like it 
within the compass of their observation; and we have no com¬ 
parison with anything except pictures, to aid them in compre¬ 
hending the idea of signs of words. It seems to them super¬ 
natural that we see in a book things taking place, or having 
occurred at a distance. No amount of explanation conveys the 
idea unless they learn to read. Macliinery is equally inex¬ 
plicable, and money nearly as much so until they see it in actual 
use. They are familiar with barter alone ; and in the centre of 
the country, where gold is totally unknown, if a button and 
sovereign were left to their choice, they would prefer the former 
on account of its having an eye. 
In beginning to learn, Motibe seemed to liimself in the posi¬ 
tion of the doctor, who was obhged to drink liis potion before the 
patient, to show that it contained nothing detrimental: after he 
had mastered the alphabet, and reported the thing so far safe, 
Sekeletu and his young companions came forward to try for 
themselves. He must have resolved to watch the effects of the 
book against his views on polygamy, and abstain whenever he 
perceived any tendency, in reading it, towards enforcing him to 
put liis wives away. A number of men learned the alphabet in 
a short time and were set to teach others, but before much pro¬ 
gress could be made I was on my w^ay to Loanda. 
As I had declined to name anything as a present ffoni 
Sekeletu, except a canoe to take me up the river, he brought 
ten fine elephants’ tusks and laid them down beside my waggon. 
He would take no denial, though I told him I should prefer to 
see him trading with Fleming, a man of colour from the West 
Indies, who had come for the purpose. I had during the eleven 
years of my previous com’se invariably abstained from taking pre¬ 
sents of ivory, from an idea that a religious instructor degraded 
liimself by accepting gifts from those whose spiritual welfare he 
professed to seek. My precedence of all traders in the line of 
discovery put me often in the way of very handsome offers, but 
I always advised the donors to sell their ivory to traders, who 
would be sure to follow, and when at some futoe time they had 
become rich by barter, they might remember me or my cluldren. 
Wlien Lake Ngami was discovered I might have refused per¬ 
mission to a trader who accompanied us; but when he applied 
