After the body of the lioness had been deposited on the ground under a mimosa, we took the opportunity of investigating the wounds. It turned out that my first bullet had passed completely along the left side of the skull, and that immediately on receiving it the wounded beast had fallen so as to leave only the lower part of its face exposed; this we had both struck, and we traced one bullet into the vertebræ of the neck, while the other, Cowley’s we presumed, had shivered the lower skull-bone to splinters.
In making my memoranda of this lion-hunt I used up the last of my writing-paper; it was some that Westbeech had torn out of his own journal and given me. It was now that I found the newspapers that I had received from Shoshong very useful; the parts that were printed on were very serviceable for pressing plants, and I was only too glad to fasten the margins together into sheets by means of mimosa-gum, and to use them for writing on.
After our hunting triumph Maranzian honoured me with a visit next day. In the course of his conversation with Westbeech and myself, he gave us some fresh information about the Barotse, the mother country of the Marutse. Noticing how I made entries in my “lungalo” (book) of all that I had seen in Sesheke, he told me that when I got to the towns of the Barotse I should see many objects much more worthy of being recorded; the buildings, he assured me, were very superior, and he referred especially to the monuments of the kings. What he described, added to what I had heard from Westbeech, as well as from the king, from Moquai, from the chiefs Rattan and Ramakocan, and from the Portuguese, only served to increase the longing with which I looked forward to the journey before me. The conversation afterwards turned upon Maritella, the heir to the throne, who had died. Maranzian said that after his death the king had had all the cattle from the town and environs driven to the grave, and left standing there until they bellowed with hunger and thirst; whereupon he exclaimed: “See, how the very cattle are mourning for my son!”
When the king returned from his great hunting-expedition he was extremely discontented with the result, and consequently very much out of temper. On one of the days the party had sighted more than a hundred elephants in the swamps near Impalera, but although at least 10,000 shots had been fired only four elephants had been killed. I called to see him and he showed me the tusks that had been brought back; there were two weighing 60 lbs., six between 25 lbs. and 30 lbs., four small female tusks, and four from animals so small that they were comparatively of no value. The two largest tusks had been much injured by the bullets.
On the 7th I started off on the longest pedestrian excursion I had yet taken, rambling on for fifty-two miles. Leaving Sesheke in good time, I crossed the western part of Blockley’s kraal and made my way to the Kashteja, where I had to go a long way up the stream before I could find a fording-place. The lower part of this affluent of the Zambesi is flat and meadow-like and bordered with underwood. On my way thither I noticed zebras, striped-gnus, letshwe and puku antelopes, and rietbock and steinbock gazelles. In the river-valley itself the orbekis and rietbocks had congregated in herds, a mode of living which I had never seen before, nor do I think that any other hunter had.
Altogether dissatisfied with their visit to Sesheke, the English officers were now very anxious to leave; but Sepopo would not provide them with canoes, and though they urged their request again on the following day, they were again refused. Blockley returned from Panda ma Tenka on the 9th. I was much pleased to greet once more a man who had shown me so much kindness; and I accompanied him when he paid his visit to Sepopo.
The king at length rejoiced my heart by acceding to my long-cherished wishes; he told me that Moquai and the queens who had come from the Barotse country were about to return, and that I was at liberty to go with them. Fellow-travellers more influential than these distinguished ladies could not be desired.
On my next visit to Sepopo I found the royal courtyard crowded with people. As soon as I entered the house the king asked me whether I had ever seen any Mashukulumbe; and understanding that I had not, he took me by the hand and introduced me to six men who were squatting on the ground. Their appearance was strange, and seemed to invite a careful scrutiny. Their skin was almost black, and their noses generally aquiline, though they had an effeminate cast of countenance, to be attributed very much to their lack of beard and to the sinking in of the upper lip. All hair was carefully removed from every part of their bodies, except the top of the skull, where it was mounted up in a very remarkable fashion.
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