596 
NATIVES’ IDEAS OF THE ENGLISH. Chap. XXIX. 
without clouds. Mrs. L. heard it once, but I never had that good 
fortune. It is worth the attention of the observant. Humboldt 
has seen rain without clouds, a phenomenon quite as singular. 
I have been in the vicinity of the fall of three aerolites, none of 
which I could afterwards discover. One feU into the lake Kuma- 
dau with a report somewhat like a sharp peal of thunder. The 
women of the Bakurutse villages there, all uttered a scream on 
hearing it. This happened at midday, and so did another at 
what is called the Great Chuai, which was visible in its descent, 
and was also accompanied with a thundering noise. The third 
fell near Kuruman and at night, and was seen as a falling star by 
people at Motito and at Daniel’s Kuil, places distant forty miles 
on opposite sides of the spot. It sounded to me hke the report 
of a great gun, and a few seconds after, a lesser sound as if 
strildng the earth after a rebound. Does the passage of a few 
such aerohtes through the atmosphere to the earth by day cause 
thunder without clouds ? 
We were detained here so long that my tent became again 
quite rotten. One of my men, after long sickness, which I did 
not understand, died here. He was one of the Batoka, and, when 
unable to walk, I had some difficulty in making his companions 
carry liim. They wished to leave him to die when his case 
became hopeless. Another of them deserted to Mozinkwa. He 
said that his motive for doing so was that the Makololo had 
kdled both his father and mother, and, as he had neither wife 
nor child, there was no reason why he should continue longer 
with them. I did not object to his statements, but said if he 
should change liis mind he would be welcome to rejoin us, and 
intimated to Mozinkwa that he must not be sold as a slave. 
We are now among people inured to slave-dealing. We were 
visited by men who had been as far as Tete or Nyungwe, and 
were told that we were but ten days from that fort. One of 
them, a Mashona man, who had come from a great distance to 
the S.W., was anxious to accompany us to the country of the 
white men; he had travelled far, and I found that he had also 
knowledge of the English tribe, and of then’ hatred to the trade 
in slaves. He told Sekwebu that the “ English were men,” an 
emphasis being put upon the term men, which leaves the impres¬ 
sion that others are, as they express it in speaking scornfully. 
