DISCONTENTED FOLLOWERS. 
379 
impediments to contend with. One front wheel of 
my wagon is very shaky, but I have rectified it with 
buffalo-hide as well as I can. 
The row I mentioned had nearly had a serious 
termination. When I went after him, the mad 
Tottie, after breaking one fellow’s head with an 
iron kettle, had just got his gun and was leisurely 
buckling on his bandolier to shoot two or three 
others, who had offended him. They scuttled away 
like rabbits in the bush, and were hid like magic, 
and I had great difficulty, at nightfall, in inducing 
them to return. As soon as I had wrested the 
gun from the Tottie, he at once packed up all 
his traps and prepared to start off, but eventually 
he agreed to wait till next morning, when he re¬ 
collected nothing of what had taken place, and all 
is going on smoothly again, though they are difficult 
to manage and keep in any sort of order. Two 
more of Sechele’s Kaffirs were ready to decamp, 
but I induced them to return ; still they are dis¬ 
satisfied and sulky, and I fully expect desertions 
from my camp any day, on any pretext. They 
do not know where they are going, and are getting 
afraid, and believe implicitly the absurd stories the 
Bakalahari and other wandering Bushmen tell them, 
but I am determined to go on, and will succeed. 
The oxen trek admirably, and the horses are in 
capital order ; but they get little or no work, as I 
am saving them for the elephants, and do all my 
hunting on foot. I saw harrisbuck spoor yesterday, 
