They are exceedingly vindictive and revengeful; but if the injured party be propitiated with gifts, and the enemy acknowledge the error of his doings, apparent cordiality and unanimity generally succeed to the most inveterate hatred.
From the king to the slave, theft is a prevailing vice with the Bechuanas, and, from what I have seen of them, I am confident that the wealthiest and the most exalted among them would not hesitate to steal the shirt off one’s back, could he effect it without being compromised. Their pilfering habits know no bounds, and they carry on the game with much dexterity. When grouped about our camp-fires I have known them to abstract the tools with which we have been working; nay, indeed, the very knives and forks from our plates. Once they actually took the meat out of the pot as it was boiling on the fire, substituting a stone! They will place their feet over any small article lying on the ground, burying it in the sand with their toes, and, if unable to carry it away at the time, they return to fetch it at a more convenient period.
I have suffered cruelly from their thievish propensities. When at the Lake they deprived me of almost the whole of my wardrobe, besides numerous other articles. Not liking to make a disturbance, and knowing the uselessness of complaining, I bore my misfortunes for a time with patience; but there is a limit to every thing. Finding, one morning, that a bag containing no less than forty pounds of shot (a most invaluable treasure to me) had disappeared in a mysterious manner, I could no longer restrain my rage. We tracked the thief to the water, but here, of course, all our efforts to follow him farther were frustrated. I then proceeded direct to the chief, and represented to him, in the strongest colors, the abominable conduct of his people, who robbed me with impunity under his very eyes, adding that their behavior was the more flagitious, as I had loaded both him and his men with presents, and treated them with undeviating kindness. To my astonishment and disgust, he laughed outright in my face, and told me that he could not control his men in this respect. Indeed, his own relations would play him the same trick.
“So much the more disgraceful to you,” I remarked, adding that he might rest assured I would take good care to tell my countrymen of the villainous conduct of the people at Lake Ngami.
“Well,” he replied, “I really can not assist you in this matter, but will give you wholesome advice, and my authority for acting on it; that is, to hang on the nearest tree the first man you catch stealing.”
He said this with so much coolness, indifference, and good-humor, that I could not, vexed as I was, refrain from smiling; and, half reconciled, I turned away from him, exclaiming, “Well, Lecholètébè, you are an incurable rogue!”
That the people really did purloin articles from their own chief I had an instance when at the Lake. Entering a trader’s hut one day, I observed some beautiful hippopotamus teeth, and on inquiring how he had become possessed of them, he replied, “Why, Lecholètébè has just asked the same question. They were stolen from the chief by his own uncle this very morning, who sold them to me as his individual property not above half an hour ago.”
The attire of the Bechuanas is scanty enough. Those, however, who have had much intercourse with Europeans begin to adopt their mode of dress; but the women, contrary to custom, are very tenacious of their peculiar toilet, apparently preferring the garb of mother Eve. The appearance of the ladies is masculine, and far from prepossessing. Their figures are usually short, stout, and clumsy, which is still farther increased by the vast numbers of beads worn by the more wealthy, which hang in cumbrous coils round the waist and neck. Their wrists, arms, and ankles, moreover, are encircled by rings of copper, iron, and brass, of various forms and sizes. They delight in finery, and besides the decoration of their own persons, they profusely ornament their skin, shirts, and cloaks, the whole being bedaubed with masses of fat and red ochre. “Their naturally woolly hair is twisted in small cords, and matted with the above substances into apparently metallic pendules, which, being of equal length, assume the appearance of a skull-cap or inverted bowl of steel.”
Notwithstanding the Bechuanas acknowledge us to be a superior race to themselves, they have no hesitation to pronounce many of our habits and customs both clumsy and troublesome. They laugh at us for putting our legs and arms into bags, and using buttons for the purpose of fastening bandages round our bodies, instead of suspending them as ornaments from the neck or hair of the head. Once initiated in the use of these things, however, they are but too glad to benefit by them. To wash the body instead of lubricating it with grease and red ochre seems to them a disgusting custom, and cleanliness about one’s food, house, bedding, &c., often creates their mirth and ridicule.