400 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
drank and washed in, the wood that I burned, the 
grass that my horses ate; and it was a great offence 
that I had taken a plunge into the river on coming, 
out of one of his punts; if I had been drowned, or 
devoured by a crocodile or sea-cow, Sekeletu would 
have blamed him, and had I lost my footing and 
fallen down the Falls, my nation would have said the 
Makololos had killed me; and, altogether, I had 
given him great uneasiness. As he put the matter in 
this light, I paid him about 6 lbs. of beads and was 
released. These beads were sent by Masipootana to 
Sekeletu, who afterwards returned them to me. 
I had some misgivings, at one time, as to our 
treatment — we were entirely in their power, and 
January was in such a taking that he could only just 
manage to drive back floods of tears. He thought it 
a very hard case indeed that he should be killed as 
well as I, as it was entirely my doing that he came 
at all, and very much indeed against his own will; and 
Masipootana endeavoured, I think, to frighten him, as 
he told me, when we were left alone at night, that 
they were going to take us out into the river and throw 
us overboard, and, in case we swam, pelt us on the 
heads with stones. 
The tsetse, too, spoilt much of my pleasure; and, 
to crown all, just as I was ready to start back to 
the wagon, I found both horses in pit-falls, the 
one coffin-shaped and the other round, narrowing 
towards the bottom, and about seven feet deep; 
the ground was clay, baked by the sun till it 
