200 
THE NEW AFRICA 
ONE OE 
KIKONTo’s MEN 
back we bad again encountered tsetse fly. We were overtaken 
bere by three boys from Kikonto, wbo came up in the most 
friendly manner imaginable with a message that Kikonto wished 
us to return to the Chobe to give him the opportunity to explain 
to us that there must be some mistake that 
caused the rupture between us, and if we would 
not return they volunteered for payment to 
help carry our things on tb the Okovanga. 
However, if they came in the hope of having 
an easy time of it or of stealing, they were 
woefully mistaken, for we made up good packs 
for them by lightening the loads of our boys, 
and kept them well guarded during the march. Our boys also 
took charge of the spears, bows and arrows they carried, so that 
these fellows proved the only ones we ever engaged, except our 
own boys, who earned their pay honestly,—very honestly, let me 
assure the reader. 
From the Okovanga boys in the village we purchased some 
beads made of circular sections of ostrich egg-shell. 
Old Sakoonima arranged for two more boys from the village 
to assist us in carrying the loads, so I also resigned my pack 
with a sigh of thanksgiving, for the leather bands of the heavy 
knapsack had already furrowed the unaccustomed skin in front 
of my shoulders to the point of bursting. 
After the usual row between old Sakoonima and ourselves 
before starting, in which Hammar kindly took the leading part 
by throwing some cloth as a present at the old fiend, a compli¬ 
ment returned with interest on the part of the old warrior, who 
angrily flourished his long metal pipe at what he considered an 
insult, and rolled out words perhaps it was as well we did not 
understand, until we had to simulate equal anger to check 
him. We got off at about 7.30 a.m., and crossed many open 
laagtes and tree-grown sand-belts, trending generally west- 
north-west, until by the afternoon we had made eighteen 
miles and camped as usual under raabula trees near a pan. 
A big day, but, now that the loads were lightened, not 
