276 
THE NEW AFRICA 
some beautiful plumes of ostriches he had shot in the desert to 
the west. We were anxious to purchase these, but he asked 
such an exorbitant price in cash that we thought better of the 
bargain. I was anxious to hire his horse for Hammar to ride 
on to the lake, but again his exorbitant demands made the 
transaction quite an impossibility. 
The lake contingent had passed us in the swamps, for our 
boys, laden with their packs, could by no means keep pace with 
those people, who were mostly carrying only light loads of 
elephant biltong, and simply trotted away from us. ‘ Tschukoor- 
roo ’—the Rhinoceros—the chief, proved to be a distant relation 
of Moremi’s. He had sent two of his men back to guide and watch 
us through the swamps, who were much distressed because their 
‘ mussiman ’—servant—had got lost or bolted with their effects 
he was carrying. Telling- us to go on, they set out to hunt for 
the truant, with dire threats of how badly he should fare if they 
found the slave. This was the last we saw of them, and in 
reality we were now prisoners at large, but with as little hope 
of escaping, even if such had been our intention, as if we had 
been under lock and key. Where could we have taken refuge 
in the hundreds of miles of waste land surrounding us on all 
sides, without being followed up, and probably subjected to severe 
indignities when caught, and with the certainty before us that 
any such attempt on our part would materially aggravate 
our position ? 
This night we slept at the scene of battle between Moremi’s 
flying people and the pursuing Matabele, who, the previous 
year, had invaded the country in large force, following up the 
lake people, who, with cattle, women, and children, hastened to 
take refuge on islands in the swamp and reeds, of which they 
alone knew the secrets of the narrow passages of access, while 
the rest of the island’s circumference was surrounded by matted 
reeds and deep water. We were told, at one of the creeks we 
crossed up to our armpits in water, that this was the only place 
where there was footing for many miles on either side, and that 
the flying natives, headed by their fighting general, Da Tapo, 
