The Makololo are by far the most intelligent and enterprising of the tribes we have met.None but brave and daring men remained long with Sebituane, his stern discipline soon eradicated cowardice from his army.Death was the inevitable doom of the coward.If the chief saw a man running away from the fight, he rushed after him with amazing speed, and cut him down; or waited till he returned to the town, and then summoned the deserter into his presence."You did not wish to die on the field, you wished to die at home, did you? you shall have your wish!" and he was instantly led off and executed.The present race of young men are inferior in most respects to their fathers.
The old Makololo had many manly virtues; they were truthful, and never stole, excepting in what they considered the honourable way of lifting cattle in fair fight.But this can hardly be said of their sons; who, having been brought up among the subjected tribes, have acquired some of the vices peculiar to a menial and degraded race.Afew of the old Makololo cautioned us not to leave any of our property exposed, as the blacks were great thieves; and some of our own men advised us to be on our guard, as the Makololo also would steal.A
very few trifling articles were stolen by a young Makololo; and he, on being spoken to on the subject, showed great ingenuity in excusing himself, by a plausible and untruthful story.The Makololo of old were hard workers, and did not consider labour as beneath them; but their sons never work, regarding it as fit only for the Mashona and Makalaka servants.Sebituane, seeing that the rival tribes had the advantage over his, in knowing how to manage canoes, had his warriors taught to navigate; and his own son, with his companions, paddled the chief's canoe.All the dishes, baskets, stools, and canoes are made by the black tribes called Manyeti and Matlotlora.The houses are built by the women and servants.The Makololo women are vastly superior to any we have yet seen.They are of a light warm brown complexion, have pleasant countenances, and are remarkably quick of apprehension.They dress neatly, wearing a kilt and mantle, and have many ornaments.Sebituane's sister, the head lady of Sesheke, wore eighteen solid brass rings, as thick as one's finger, on each leg, and three of copper under each knee; nineteen brass rings on her left arm, and eight of brass and copper on her right, also a large ivory ring above each elbow.She had a pretty bead necklace, and a bead sash encircled her waist.The weight of the bright brass rings round her legs impeded her walking, and chafed her ankles; but, as it was the fashion, she did not mind the inconvenience, and guarded against the pain by putting soft rag round the lower rings.
Justice appears upon the whole to be pretty fairly administered among the Makololo.A headman took some beads and a blanket from one of his men who had been with us; the matter was brought before the chief, and he immediately ordered the goods to be restored, and decreed, moreover, that no headman should take the property of the men who had returned.In theory, all the goods brought back belonged to the chief; the men laid them at his feet, and made a formal offer of them all; he looked at the articles, and told the men to keep them.This is almost invariably the case.Tuba Mokoro, however, fearing lest Sekeletu might take a fancy to some of his best goods, exhibited only a few of his old and least valuable acquisitions.
Masakasa had little to show; he had committed some breach of native law in one of the villages on the way, and paid a heavy fine rather than have the matter brought to the Doctor's ears.Each carrier is entitled to a portion of the goods in his bundle, though purchased by the chief's ivory, and they never hesitate to claim their rights; but no wages can be demanded from the chief, if he fails to respond to the first application.
Our men, accustomed to our ways, thought that the English system of paying a man for his labour was the only correct one, and some even said it would be better to live under a government where life and labour were more secure and valuable than here.While with us, they always conducted themselves with propriety during Divine service, and not only maintained decorum themselves, but insisted on other natives who might be present doing the same.When Moshobotwane, the Batoka chief, came on one occasion with a number of his men, they listened in silence to the reading of the Bible in the Makololo tongue; but, as soon as we all knelt down to pray, they commenced a vigorous clapping of hands, their mode of asking a favour.Our indignant Makololo soon silenced their noisy accompaniment, and looked with great contempt on this display of ignorance.Nearly all our men had learned to repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed in their own language, and felt rather proud of being able to do so; and when they reached home, they liked to recite them to groups of admiring friends.Their ideas of right and wrong differ in no respect from our own, except in their professed inability to see how it can be improper for a man to have more than one wife.A year or two ago several of the wives of those who had been absent with us petitioned the chief for leave to marry again.They thought that it was of no use waiting any longer, their husbands must be dead; but Sekeletu refused permission; he himself had bet a number of oxen that the Doctor would return with their husbands, and he had promised the absent men that their wives should be kept for them.The impatient spouses had therefore to wait a little longer.Some of them, however, eloped with other men; the wife of Mantlanyane, for instance, ran off and left his little boy among strangers.
Mantlanyane was very angry when he heard of it, not that he cared much about her deserting him, for he had two other wives at Tette, but he was indignant at her abandoning his boy.
