I felt myself again a little better, and would not lose the opportunity of going out for a few miles. I was particularly anxious to obtain some birds’ skins; but although I had the best assistance of my people, I was quite unequal to follow a bird to any distance, so that I only succeeded in bagging a black swallow-tailed shrike. My exertions, however, were rewarded in another way, as I made a good collection both of plants and insects. During my stay in the Leshumo Valley I added nearly 3000 botanical and about 500 entomological specimens to my collection. During my walk I came upon several smelting-furnaces, made of the smallest of bricks; they were about six feet long and three feet wide, and had, I conjectured, been put up fifty or sixty years before by the Marutse vassals, who had resided on this side of the Zambesi before the settlement of the free-booting kingdom of the Matabele Zulus.
A day or two afterwards some Masupias came from Impalera bringing corn for sale, and Diamond, as a contribution from his hunting-expedition, brought me some buffalo-beef; he seemed inclined to grumble at the alacrity the buffalo-bulls displayed in getting out of his way, and said that the density of the summer foliage made it very hard to get at them. We were thus well supplied for the time, but I had been so long debarred from taking animal food, that the buffalo-meat did not at all agree with my digestion. My servants, however, were all delighted at the change in their accustomed bill of fare.
I had indulged the hope that I should find the higher ground adjacent to the little Leshumo river much more healthy than the mouth of the Chobe. My disappointment was consequently great to find, that morning after morning the whole valley was full of fog, which after rain was always especially dense. The result was that I felt deplorably ill all the early part of every day; and although I revived somewhat later on as the fog lifted a little, I remained so extremely sensitive to the least breath of wind, that even in these hottest months of January and February, I always had to wear two coats whilst I was engaged in writing or botanizing.
On the 23rd I received a visit from a company of Marutse men, who rather surprised me by saying that they had come from the south. The party consisted of a chieftain named Moia and several adherents. Moia was the brother of Kapella, Sepopo’s commander-in-chief, and had been condemned to death by Sepopo about a year before. Some liquid had been poured in front of the king’s residence, and as the king was feeling more than usually unwell, he came at once to the conclusion that he had been bewitched, and Moia’s enemies had taken advantage of the circumstance to charge him with the deed, the consequence being that in order to escape being sentenced to be burnt or poisoned he had to fly the country. He had betaken himself to Shoshong, where Khame had received him most kindly and allowed him to remain; but discovering after a while that the fugitive was being consumed with the desire to get back to his home, the king resolved to send him to Sepopo, with an autograph letter demonstrating Moia’s entire innocence of the crime that had been laid to his charge. For my own part I was convinced that Sepopo would never be persuaded, and I advised the chief to beware how he placed himself within the tyrant’s reach; but the longing to return to his wife and children was too intense to allow him to listen to any voice of caution, and he continued his homeward way.
By this time I was so destitute of provisions that I was obliged to send two of my servants to the Zambesi, and get them to bring me some of the Masupia people from whom I might purchase a supply of kaffir-corn and maize, and I requested them if possible to buy me a goat. Unfortunately the servants missed their way, and I had to send two others instead of them, so that there was a delay of four-and-twenty hours before the Masupia dealers arrived. When they came, they brought besides the corn a number of interesting curiosities, amongst which was the horn of an enormous rhinoceros.
A celestial phenomenon occurred on the following evening, so remarkable that I think it ought to be recorded. It was almost sunset; in the west and south there was a narrow strip of blue sky, whilst in the east, where a storm was rising, there were repeated flashes of lightning. When only a small section of the sun’s disk was visible, a strange fiery glow arose about 45° above the eastern horizon, and seemed entirely to overpower the central portion of the arch of a rainbow opposite, leaving only the extremities to be seen down in the east-north-east and south-east; as the sun disappeared, the glow faded gradually away, but so remarkably that every tint in the rainbow seemed to be absorbed in the prevailing colour, and the entire arch was a gorgeous red. In the course of the next few minutes the glow reappeared, but this time only to rise about 10° above the horizon. The entire spectacle was not of long duration; the brilliancy became gradually dim, and in the course of about a quarter of an hour, the valley was shrouded in the obscurity of night.
Two of my own servants and some of Diamond’s party were here attacked by influenza, but the complaint was soon relieved by the administration of emetics. The weather was unfavourable, and brought on several relapses of my own fever, which, although I managed in various ways to alleviate them, invariably left me extremely weak and incapable of any exertion. A short time afterwards several of Diamond’s people began to sicken with typhus.
All through this dreary time, the occasional hunting-excursions were all we had to look to in the way of excitement. April, the Basuto, had the good-luck to kill a buffalo-bull, and when the flesh was brought to the camp there was a regular banquet in the evening, accompanied by singing and dancing; even the invalid negroes sucked some fragments of the half-cooked meat which they were quite unable to swallow. Diamond likewise went out, but returned on the 2nd of February without bringing any material contribution to our stores; he had come upon a herd of elephants, but they had startled him so completely by their rush, that he did not recover himself in time to get a shot at them.
When it was announced to me that part of Westbeech’s ivory had arrived at Impalera, I was much cheered by the expectation that Westbeech himself would immediately follow. My means of purchasing corn were now so nearly exhausted that I could not help growing more and more anxious.
On the 7th I was equally surprised and distressed by the arrival of a party of about thirty Masupias, who proved to be bailiffs on the hunt for Moia and Kapella. Moia had carried Khame’s letter to Sesheke, where his appearance caused a great sensation, as the return of a condemned fugitive was a thing quite unprecedented. The particulars of what ensued I afterwards learnt from Westbeech, who told me that he had been summoned to the royal enclosure, which he found in great commotion. The king had just received Khame’s letter written in Sechuana, professed himself to be highly gratified by the contents, and had sent for Westbeech to write a reply, in which he gave his assurance that Moia should have a free pardon. But that very night he sent Mashoku a list of twelve names of chiefs who were to be executed forthwith, amongst them Inkambella, Maranzian, Kapella, and Moia.