Sepopo made repeated visits to us, always accompanied by a number of servants bringing great quantities of ivory, which he bartered with Blockley for guns and ammunition. Whenever he was going to send his hunters on an excursion, he always had the men into his residence overnight, and gave them about a quart of gunpowder each, taking an account of what he had done. Blockley made great complaints because the king always required a present after every transaction. It was a custom that Westbeech had introduced when he was the sole trader who did business on the Zambesi, and could demand what terms he liked for his goods; but now that other dealers had found their way to Sesheke they were all completely in the king’s power; and the result of the competition was to make them bid such high prices for the ivory that they had good cause to grumble at the bad state of trade.
When I went to the king next day to consult him again about my journey, I found that he had just had an altercation with Blockley, and was consequently rather cross; but by interesting him in some of my travelling experiences, I managed to put him into a good temper again, and he began to show me my proper route, by drawing a map of the Upper Zambesi and its affluents with his stick on the sand. He was much pleased with the interest I took in his communications, and calling to him two Manengos from the Upper Zambesi, who were passing through the place, and who had several times traversed the country, he made them also describe the localities; and to my satisfaction I found that their delineations corresponded precisely with his.
Whatever I had that was new to Sepopo, he not only inquired of what use it was, but almost invariably wanted to have it. He made a great many inquiries about my compass. In order to explain its object I drew a plan of the eastern hemisphere; and then pointing out Africa, showed him the direction I took through the Bechuana countries.
I was invited to pay a visit to the royal kitchen, a department that was under the superintendence of a woman, who had several assistants. Everything was very clean, and the huge corn-bins were placed on wooden stands in little separate huts made of matting and reeds. A fire was kept continually burning on a low hearth in the courtyard, at which, during the time of my visit, a servant was boiling a piece of hippopotamus-flesh. The meat, which was nearly done, was afterwards served on a large wooden dish, then cut up into fragments, placed upon smaller dishes, and so sent in to the queen.
A messenger that evening arriving from Panda ma Tenka brought word that Westbeech and another trader had arrived there from Shoshong, and as I hoped to be off next morning, I sat up nearly all night to work at my drawings. It was quite early when I was summoned to the canoes which were to take me to Makumba’s landing-place, and then wait for Westbeech. The passage down the river was just as pleasant as it had been on the way up. I gave my chief attention to the different varieties of birds, finding some interesting subjects for study in the speckled black-and-white skimmers (Rhynchopinæ), with their lower mandible much elongated, in the huge marabouts, and in the fine kingfishers. The reeds were covered with snails, and the banks literally perforated by crabs. Pools lay close together all along the shore, the stream having fallen eighteen inches in the interval of the few days since I had last passed over it.
ON THE SHORES OF THE ZAMBESI.
We spent the night in a creek, starting off again betimes next morning. The boatmen exerted themselves to their utmost, and our progress was not much short of five miles an hour. On reaching Impalera I found that Westbeech, with a considerable party, had arrived before me; they were now on the point of starting to pay their respects to Sepopo. Their waggons had been left at Panda ma Tenka.
Westbeech, who had married the daughter of a farmer in the Transvaal a few months before, had his young wife with him, and was attended by his clerk Bauren; Francis, the merchant who was travelling with him, had likewise, according to his custom, brought his wife, who had already done much to secure the respect both of the white residents and the natives. They were accompanied by a distant relative named Oppenshaw, who acted as Francis’s clerk. Besides Bauren, Westbeech had also brought a man of the name of Walsh, who had formerly been a soldier, and subsequently a gaoler in Cape Town; he was a proficient in the art of preserving birds’-skins, and had come out to carry on business in that way in the Zambesi district, under the arrangement that he was to share his profits with Westbeech.
The two merchants were anxious to get their visit to Sepopo over as quickly as possible that they might get back to Panda ma Tenka, and start with their wives on a visit to the Victoria Falls. They had brought with them all my correspondence, and I had welcome letters, not only from home, but from various friends in the diamond-diggings. I received about sixty newspapers, the broad white margins of which were subsequently of great service to me, in the dearth of writing-paper; amongst them was a copy of the Diamond News, containing my first article on the subject of my present journey.