168 
THE NEW AFEIGA 
come for certain. But experience had taught us that Matam- 
banj a was not to be trusted; else, where were the men he had 
previously promised me ? And then, even if they came, there was 
no dependence to be placed on their fulfilling the sham orders 
this class of man might probably give them. It was only a 
blind to get more goods. But we had made up our minds to 
be dupes no longer, and replied that we would now give nothing 
more until after the work was completed, and his men had 
delivered us at the Okavango, where we would be prepared to 
pay them for their services. Matambanja played us a final 
stroke by telling our boys that ahead were many dangers to 
be expected from robber tribes, and advised us to go back to 
where we came from, otherwise we would surely be killed. He 
also spoke vaguely of dangers on the road to Walfish bay. 
As his geographical knowledge of Walfish bay must necessarily 
be on a par with the rest of his general knowledge of African 
geography, we attached small weight to his advice, and begged 
him to go and fetch us the bearers and guides we wanted. 
He went off without bidding us much of a farewell, with a 
threatening ‘We shall see each other again’ sort of manner, 
that taught us there was not much to be expected from him in 
a friendly way. Subsequently we came to the conclusion that 
it was his object to keep us on the Chobe, where we could more 
easily have been robbed by his people. 
I wish here to particularly point out the causes of our diffi¬ 
culties, as a hint to those who may ever wish to travel through 
those inhospitable regions. In the first place, we had in¬ 
sufficient bearers, and consequently were dependent upon the 
natives for assistance, through no fault of our own, but through 
the desertion of Jan Yeyers, who should have seen us up to 
this point, when, with our respectably sized following, we would 
have made sufficient impression on the natives to bid them 
beware of interfering with us. And secondly, a mistake of vast 
importance, we were compelled to camp too long in one spot, 
in the neighbourhood of many villages where the inhabitants 
could take our measure accurately, and had time to mature plans 
