194 
AFRICAN HUNTING, 
Kaffirs to death, by telling them Mosilikatse will 
most certainly kill them both, as they are Zulus, and 
spies of Panda’s; and I cannot convince them to the 
contrary. 
As near as I can judge of our whereabouts, we are 
about twelve days from the coast — say 250 miles, 
more or less — and in about the same degree of lati¬ 
tude as Inhambane, a Portuguese settlement between 
Helagoa Bay and Sofala. This is what I glean from 
the Kaffirs; but I may be considerably out of my 
reckoning. The Bushmen Kaffirs say there are no 
elephants at all in this locality; they have just 
returned from a two days’ search, and saw no fresh 
spoors at all; but they cannot be believed — that is 
one comfort. 
I will never again come with Boers ; they are 
hardly one remove from the Kaffirs, have no inform¬ 
ation whatever on any subject but wagons and oxen, 
never read a book of any sort or description in their 
lives, are perfectly ignorant of what every child 
in England knows, and ask the most ridiculous ques¬ 
tions,—spending their spare time in drinking coffee 
and smoking. How they get through life is a mys¬ 
tery. You can learn nothing whatever from them. 
Long yarns of their hunting exploits, repeated till 
you know them by heart, are all you get from them. 
They are very superstitious, too; nearly as much so 
as Hottentots. There is one of the latter now by 
the wagon — a dirty little brute, who, when I ex¬ 
postulated with him on never washing, said he would 
