With regard to affection between parents and children, I have no hesitation in saying that it is displayed chiefly on the side of the parents, who often lavish a care upon their offspring that is very ill-requited when they become old and infirm.
From my own experience I should not advise any traveller in the Marutse-Mabunda kingdom to trust himself unreservedly to servants provided by the king; it is far better to ask a chief or some other person of importance to act as guide, and to chastise with the kiri all unruly boatmen and bearers; but before starting it is necessary that all stipulations with the sovereign should be definitely settled.
It is unadvisable to be over-liberal, and each tribe should be treated as its character demands. From what I have already said it may be inferred that a little kindness prevails much with the Mamboë and Manansas; but more reserve must be used with the Marutse and Mankoë. The Matabele require a serious if not a stern demeanour; and it is necessary to recollect that with the Makalakas everything must be kept under lock and key. Whoever the ruler is, he should be treated with marked civility; and if there should be any difference of opinion with him, it is best to try and conceal it; but should courtesy fail, and he begins to be in any way overreaching in his demands, he should be resisted calmly and firmly, without precipitate recourse to forcible measures. As so few of the tribes are remarkable for bravery, it follows that whenever a traveller finds his progress interrupted, or his designs thwarted, he will best surmount the difficulty, or provide for his safe retreat, by preserving a resolute and fearless bearing.
A MASUPIA. A PANDA.
Their human sacrifices, their manner of slaughtering their domestic animals, and the use of barbed assegais for destroying game, demonstrate that a brutal cruelty is one of the predominant failings of these people; and yet malice and perfidy are extremely rare, the Makalakas alone being guilty of the latter vice. All tribes profess a certain amount of indebtedness to the white men, the measure of gratitude increasing in proportion to the simplicity of their mode of living, or the farther they are removed to the north, north-east, or north-west of the Victoria Falls and the mouth of the Chobe.
Vanity is common, no doubt, to all savage races, but the Marutse-Mabunda tribes indulge in it with greater tact than the people farther south. Their moral standard is very low, but this, as I have before had occasion to remark, is the result of ignorance rather than of corruption; and I believe that instruction and good example, combined with a little gentle pressure put upon the rulers by white men, would in a very few years work a marvellous amendment; but to bring about a reformation, it must be confessed that the kings should be very different men from Sepopo. The first thing that it behoves a stranger to do is to set his face against the mulekow system. It is the proper way in which he should seek to gain respect for himself; and it is of great advantage to let the people know that no such custom is tolerated in any other country.
The system, too, by which the sovereign takes for wives any women he will, must also be broken down before any great moral improvement can be expected. They nearly always have to marry him in defiance of their own wishes, and are only free to refuse under the penalty of death; consequently they are seldom otherwise than unfaithful. Sepopo took care to expose every breach of fidelity that came to his knowledge; but the general example of the queens was so utterly bad, that even women who had been free to marry at their own choice, never held themselves bound to keep the marriage vow inviolate.
As one proof that the few white men who have visited the Zambesi district have exercised some influence on the habits of the population, it may be recorded that the natives have begun to wear a kind of clothing, however primitive, instead of going, like their northern neighbours, the Mashukulumbe, absolutely naked.
