248 
THE NEW AFRICA 
if on the best of terms, and demanded as a farewell gift from us 
an iron basin or dish, which Franz, now valiant again, seized 
and refused to hand over; hut Indala, letting out some of his 
temper at him, soon induced him to. drop the dish as if it had 
been too warm to hold, whereat our boys roared with laughter at 
poor Franz. Handing the dish to Indala, I asked him if he 
at last was satisfied. With a hungry eye directed at our packs, 
now beyond his reach, he assented. Then I took him by the 
hand, and, calling Paul and his interpreters, held him with 
my firmest grip, and told him on behalf of all white men what 
was uppermost in my mind about him : that he was a scoundrel, 
and deserved to be shot for the way he had treated us, and 
warned him in future to behave well to white men, otherwise 
some day they would come and punish him. Unexpectedly the 
words seemed to affect him; and as he »found he could not 
release himself from my grip, he had to listen, while with the 
able agency of Paul I read him a lesson, during which he 
actually hung his head, and then I let go. He looked once at 
his crushed fingers, and, hastily waving his hand in token of 
farewell, turned and went home. 
We gave a letter addressed to the German Geographical 
Society at Berlin, of which I was a member, to Gonsalvus, 
begging him to forward it from the West Coast on his arrival 
there, and, shaking hands with him and Intuhe, we turned 
southward. The letter given to Gonsalvus never reached its 
destination. 
The Mombokooshus, a tribe inhabiting the central Okovanga 
river, called by themselves Cubangwe, are a well-built race of 
tall people, broad and strong in figure. Their features are like 
those of the Barotzi, and their habits and clothing the same. 
They all wear the cloth or strip of soft buck-hide drawn between 
the legs, tied tightly behind and before to a stout string round 
the waist. The colour of their skin varies from deep, dirty 
black to coffee colour. The hair shaved away from the fore¬ 
head falls backwards over the head in small, crisp, negro curls, 
and is often smeared with some reddish substance mixed with 
