Molema, it may be mentioned by the way, is a Christian and a preacher. It pleased me very much to find that he has forbidden the felling of any trees in the precincts of the town; and we had scarcely made our encampment when a native, as the representative of the police-court, came to apprise us of the rule, at the same time offering to assign us adequate pasturage for our cattle.
I was contemplating calling on Mr. Webb, the missionary; but before I had positively made up my mind, a fair stout man leading a little girl by the hand came out of the Mission-house towards me, and, as I anticipated, introduced himself to me. We engaged in a long conversation, and he gave me much information about the locality. He told me that Montsua was now residing at Moshaneng, a town in the province of his royal ally Khatsisive, the ruler of the Banquaketse. He was resolved, however, to settle in Poolfontein, where the Transvaal Government (probably for the purpose of forestalling the independent Barolong chiefs) had placed its Barolong subjects. This was a great annoyance to Montsua, and the real motive of his desire to leave Moshaneng, and to build himself a new residence elsewhere.[8]
The Mission-house was furnished with the barest necessities, as, in the extremely unsettled state of affairs, Mr. Webb considered his residence likely to be only temporary; moreover, Molema, being himself a preacher, was by no means well disposed to white missionaries at all. Both Mr. Webb and his wife, who appeared to be an energetic helper in his labours, advised me to make my way as quickly as possible to Moshaneng.
Mr. Webb now went to inform Molema of my arrival, and brought him back with him to the Mission-house. Molema was an old man, suffering from asthma. He expressed himself very delighted to see me, and said that he had not seen a Nyaka (doctor) since Nyaka Livingstone. He was very anxious that I should give him a molemo (a dose) that would relieve him of his troublesome cough, and enable him to breathe more freely; inviting me to go and see him on the following morning, he promised that if I would stay for a few days he would make me a present of a fat sheep.
DISPENSING DRUGS IN THE OPEN.
In an excursion that I made up the country, I observed that wherever there was a stratum of mould, it never failed to be sown with kaffir corn. I noticed a good many specimens of tropical vegetation, the first I had seen since leaving Grahamstown; but, on the other hand, I saw a large number of plants distinctively belonging to the temperate zones, such as Campanula, Saponaria, Veronica, and some umbelliferous Euphorbiaceæ; out on the plains the grass stood four feet high. I shot a heron and several finches, including two fire-finches; also two spurred plovers, which probably I should not have noticed but for their peculiar cry of “tick-tick.” The women who were working in the fields were much cleaner than the Batlapins; and after I left Molema’s Town I was satisfied that these northern Barolongs, as they are called, are altogether of a higher grade not only than the Batlapins, but than the Mokalana, Marokana, or south-western Barolongs; in agriculture, however, and especially in cattle-breeding, they are far surpassed by the south-eastern Barolongs, who reside in and about Thaba Unshu, which contains over 10,000 inhabitants, the people living to a large extent upon their horse-breeding, which cannot be successfully carried on either in the Molapo district or in the Transvaal, on account of the horse-plague.
I did not omit next day to pay my visit to Molema. The chief received me in his little courtyard, and after introducing me to his wife and sons, whose apartments were close at hand, sent for some wooden stools for myself and Mr. Webb, who accompanied me. When we were seated, he begged me to give him the latest news from Cape Colony and the diamond-fields; he made inquiries about the proceedings of the English Government in the south, complained bitterly of the encroachments of the Boers in the east, and wound up by asking me whether I was an Englishman or a Boer. When Mr. Webb tried to explain to him that I was a Bohemian, he looked completely mystified; and having asked me my name, he made some old Barolongs who were sitting in the courtyard repeat both my name and my country over and over again, until the two words were sufficiently impressed upon his memory. Before I left I made him a promise that I would never return to his country without paying him a visit, and he assured me that I should always find a welcome.
Before I left Mr. Webb gave me two letters of introduction, one to Mr. Martin, a merchant residing in Moshaneng, the other to Montsua, which Mr. Martin would read and interpret to him.
On the 5th we started off northwards towards the foot of a wooded hill. Without deviating far from our proper route I had many opportunities of adding to my entomological collection; amongst other coleoptera I secured a large and handsome tortoise-beetle that I had never seen before, having its wing-sheaths dotted with greenish-gold and brown spots; its habitat apparently was on one of the commonest South African nightshades. The nest of the sociable weaver-birds (Philetærus socius) did not fail also to attract my attention, abounding as they did in the camel-acacias along the way.