In Sepopo’s employment there were likewise two old wizen-looking magicians or doctors, Liva and his brother, who exercised almost a supreme control over state affairs. They had practised their craft for more than sixty years; they had served under previous sovereigns, and their experience enabled them now to minister to Sepopo’s suspicions, to manage his temper, and to foster his superstitions. They enjoyed a kind of hereditary reputation, as in spite of the atrocities which they were known to have encouraged, they were regarded by the various tribes with awe rather than with hatred. That there had not been a revolt long ago against Sepopo’s tyranny was mainly to be attributed to the belief that he had those in his secret council who could divine any plot beforehand and frustrate any stratagem that could be devised, and even when his despotism grew so great that the life of the highest in the kingdom was not secure for a day, not a man could be found to lift an assegai against him. At last it happened that a certain charm which he had publicly exhibited and proclaimed to be infallible failed to produce its proper effect; scales as it were fell from the eyes of the populace; they discerned that all his pretensions were hypocrisy and deceit, and proceeded forthwith to expel him from the throne.
The elephant-hunt, so long talked of, came off on the 27th. At dawn of day all Sesheke was in commotion; the royal courtyard, where the king was distributing powder and shot, was so full of men equipped for the excursion that I could only with difficulty make my way across. I hurried to tell my English friends the news, but I found that they had already been apprised of the hunt by one of the chiefs, and that although they had not been invited by the king, they were preparing to join the throng. The excitement between the royal enclosure and the river was very great; as the people ran backwards and forwards they shouted and laughed, and I had never seen them in such high spirits and so generally blithe and genial. A hunt on this extensive scale was very rare; the present occasion had been anticipated for months, and it had a special interest of its own from the circumstance that some white men and the king himself were to take part in the sport. Long rows of canoes lined the river bank, another flotilla having collected on the opposite side, the crews on the sand ready to embark at a moment’s notice. Hurrying on their way to the Kashteja to await the arrival of canoes to take them across were caravans of men, chiefly Mankoë, Mabundas, and Western Makalakas; every chief made his own people arrange themselves in proper order, and despatched the proper contingent to look after the embarkation of the clothes and water-vessels, and especially to look to the guns, which necessarily engrossed a good deal of attention.
As the king was leaving his residence he was confronted by the party of Englishmen, who remonstrated with him very severely because he had failed to keep his promise of inviting them to the hunt. His behaviour towards them had really been abominable. After endeavouring to fall in with his wishes in every way, and having twice come from Panda ma Tenka on purpose, and, moreover, having submitted to be fleeced by him till they had little more than the clothes on their backs, they now found that he was about to start without them. This could not be. No doubt Sepopo had his own motives for his conduct; he was accustomed to consider all elephants as his own property, whether shot by himself or not, and probably he was anxious to conceal what numbers of elephants there were in the country, lest the visits of white men should become too frequent; but he was bound to keep his word, and at length, in deference to the representations of some of the chiefs who were in attendance, he consented that the three sportsmen, as well as a trader named Dorehill, who had paid him a visit the year before, should have a canoe placed at their disposal.
It was about noon when the king and his flotilla started off. He was accompanied by his band, and at least two hundred canoes set out from Sesheke alone, apart from those that joined at other parts of the river. It was with no little reluctance that I refrained from going, but I considered it prudent to do nothing to arouse Sepopo’s suspicions, and feared that by taking part in the hunt I might lead him to suppose that my proposed expedition in his country had some design of interfering with the elephants.
My general rule at this time was to spend my evenings with Westbeech, where with his assistance I tried to converse with the natives, and gathered many particulars about their manners and customs. In his hut I met a Marutse named Uana ea Nyambe, i. e. the child of God, who prided himself very much upon his wisdom, and was often consulted by Sepopo.
On the 29th I stayed at home to keep guard while Westbeech and his servant went out hunting; they were more fortunate than I had been on my last excursion, and returned with a letshwebock that had no less than ten bullets in its body. I believe that the muscles of the neck are more strongly developed in this species of antelope than in any other.
The next day we received a visit from several Marutse who had their foreheads and chests tied up with bandages of snake-skin, to keep off pain, as they explained; they told us that they not unfrequently fastened the bandages round their waists to allay the pangs of hunger; the Makololos use leather straps, and the Matabele strips of calico for the same purpose.
Two boatmen came in a little before sunset to fetch some provisions for the white men on the hunting-ground; they reported that hitherto the chase had been somewhat unsuccessful, but that it was to be resumed in the morning. But about another hour later we were much surprised to see Cowley and Dorehill turn up; they were disappointed, and consequently angry; they told us that they had been stationed in a reed-thicket with the king and the principal members of his suite, and had been waiting for the elephants to be driven up; Sepopo, however, grew so impatient that he fired while the herd was more than sixty yards distant; the consequence was that they immediately took to flight; there were nearly 800 huntsmen following the king, and almost as many beaters, and when the elephants began to run, a sort of panic seized everybody, guns were fired in every direction, often without an aim at all, and in the general pell-mell it was no great wonder that only five elephants should be killed altogether. Cowley and Dorehill affirmed that they had been obliged to throw themselves on the ground to escape the random volley of shot; and they declared, moreover, that the beaters had utterly failed in their work, which would have been done far more effectually by a couple of Masarwas than by the whole host of them. The king had given vent to his anger at the bungling in his usual fashion by thrashing every one within reach with a heavy stick till his arm ached. Before starting, he had been smeared with a variety of ointments which he called a “molemo” to give him influence over the elephants.
Wishing to make rather a longer excursion into the Sesheke woods than I had previously done, I started off before sunrise, and having passed the site of Old Sesheke, turned to the west. On my left lay the Zambesi valley, an apparently boundless plain overgrown with trees and clumps of reeds, and intersected in various places by side-arms of the river, some of them several miles in length. The woods to which I was bending my way were about twenty feet above the level of the water. Some of the lagoons extended right up to the trees, stretching along the edge of the forest for miles, though the river itself was at an average distance of three miles away. Near one of the lagoons I saw a couple of darters, and very singular their appearance was as they perched upon a bare projecting bough, their stumpy bodies and short legs being quite out of proportion to their long, thin necks, that never rested from their snake-like contortions; but a still stranger sight it is to see them swim, the whole of the body being immersed and nothing but the upper part of the neck with the head and sharp beak visible above the water. Until arriving at the Zambesi, I had not seen the darter (Plotus congensis) since I left the eastern parts of Cape Colony. In a way that is scarcely credible without being witnessed, their long, narrow throats are capable of swallowing fish as large as a man’s hand. I shot several, but they all fell into the water, and as the lagoons abounded with crocodiles, it was not without risk that I and my four servants contrived to fish them out again. Shortly afterwards I shot a Francolinus nudicollis.
Noticing some buffalo tracks that apparently led down to the river I determined to follow them, and found that they soon turned back to the woods, past a native village. We continued our way about three miles beyond this, when we observed how the grass alongside the tracks had been quite recently eaten away, and drew an inference that the buffaloes were not likely to be far distant, and that we ought to be on our guard; the trees around us were not of any great height, but the underwood was dense, and the bushes round the glades were rather thick, so that our progress was not at all easy.