If this purification of individuals should prove unavailing, a general purifying of all fires and fire-places is ordered, and the linyakas proceed to remove from every hearth the three stones upon which the kettle is supported, and having carried them all away, and laid them in a heap outside the town, they consecrate as many new ones. During this ceremony all fires must be put out; and either in the evening of the same day, or early on the following morning, one of the assistant officers brings some brushwood and a light, and kindles the fires afresh.
If it should turn out that even this proceeding is a failure, more vigorous measures still have to be adopted. An universal cleansing of the entire town is proclaimed, and all accumulations of the bones of animals, all fragments of skins, and all remnants of human remains, are scrupulously collected and buried in a deep grave; and if the grave should be anywhere near the burial-place of a former chief, which is generally kept a secret, a cow is slaughtered to appease his anger, which probably has been aroused; and very often hunting excursions, known as “letshulo,” are set on foot for the purpose of securing particular animals, some parts of which are essential for the linyakas’ enchantments and rain-charms.
Whatever effect Christianity may have had in ameliorating the condition of the wives of the converts, it has done very little to lighten the severity of their tasks; the introduction of the plough, however, which is driven by men with the help of oxen (animals which the women never touch), has relieved the Bechuana women of one of their most fatiguing labours. It is to be hoped that it will gradually tend to the abolition of all the senseless ceremonies of the rain-magic, which I have made this long digression to describe.
I resume the account of our travels.
We left Molopolole by the Koboque-pass, and proceeded northwards along the valley of an affluent of the Tshanyana. The vegetation around us was luxuriant, the river-banks, valleys, and hillsides being partially wooded with shrubs and trees, and clothed with flowers and grasses of many varieties. The steep cliffs, here red, there yellow, there again grey or dark brown, formed natural terraces of rock, whilst the great loose boulders, some sharp at the edges, some rounded, were set in a framework of verdure, spangled with blossoms of every hue.
The clouds were not propitious, and it was through a heavy downpour of rain that we had to toil along the sandy road. But this was neither the end nor the worst of our ill-luck. When we came to a halt after the exertions of the day, I found that Stephan and Dietrich, the two servants that I had brought from Musemanyana, had disappeared, and with them two of my strongest bullocks. I had noticed on the previous evening how the runaways had been repeatedly warning me that there were lions in the neighbourhood, and concluded that they had a desire to dissuade me from continuing my journey. Our distance from Molopolole was about fifteen miles; nevertheless I determined to make my way back, and to ask Sechele to despatch some horsemen over Khatsisive’s country in search of the rascals; and finding next morning that the rain had almost ceased, accompanied by Boly and Pit, I set out on foot to the town.
I walked for five hours, but my heavy boots had by that time rendered my feet so painful that I was obliged to stop; and sitting down on the grass at the edge of the pass leading into the Molopolole valley, I sent Boly and Pit to carry my messages to Sechele and Mr. Price.
Hour after hour went slowly by, foreboding no good for the success of their mission, and when they joined me again quite late in the afternoon, it was only to confirm my fear that all search had been unavailing.
It was little less than martyrdom that I endured all the way back to the waggon. Unable to bear the pressure of my boots, I was compelled to walk barefooted, and as the rain had washed down on to the road countless seeds of a kind of ranunculus (R. crepens), that the Boers on account of their prickliness have named “Devil’s grit,” my agonies can be better imagined than described.
Only just before midnight we caught sight of the blaze of our camp-fire, and were greeted with a cheer of welcome.