produce a different sound ; and around the group of
dancing men old women still circulate, as of yore,
clapping their withered hands and encouraging
festivity. It was a sight of considerable picturesqueness
amid the bee-hive huts and tall overhanging
rocks.
Masoupa was once the residence of a missionary,
but the church is now abandoned and falling into
ruins, because when asked to repair the edifice at
their own expense the men of Masoupa waxed wroth,
and replied irreverently that God might repair His
own house; and one old man who received a blanket
for his reward for attending divine service is reported
to have remarked, when the dole was stopped, ‘ No
more blanket, no more hallelujah.’ I fear me the
men of Masoupa are wedded to heathendom.
The accession of Pilan to the chiefdom of Masoupa
is a curious instance of the Sechuana marriage laws.
A former chiefs heir was affianced young; he died
at the age of eight, before succeeding his father, and,
according to custom, the next brother, Moshulilla,
married the woman; their son was Pilan, who, on
coming of age, turned out his own father, being, as
he said, the rightful heir of the boy of eight, for
whom he, Moshulilla, the younger brother, had been
instrumental in raising up seed. There is a distinct
touch of Hebraic, probably Semitic, law in this, as
there is in many another Sechuana custom.
The so-called purchase of a wife is curious enough
in Bechuanaland. The intending husband brings
with him the number of bullocks he thinks the girl is
worth ; wisely, he does not offer all his stock at once,
leaving two or more, as the case may be, at a little
distance, for he knows the father will haggle and ask
for an equivalent for the girl’s keep during childhood,
whereupon he will send for another bullock; then
the mother will come forward and demand something
for lactation and other maternal offices, and another
bullock will have to be produced before the contract
can be ratified. In reality this apparent purchase of
the wife is not so barefaced a thing as it seems, for
she is not a negotiable article and cannot again be
sold; in case of divorce her value has to be paid
back, and her children, if the purchase is not made,
belong to her own family. Hence a woman who is
not properly bought is in the condition of a slave,
whereas her purchased sister has rights which assure
her a social standing.
Prom Pilan’s the northward road becomes hideous
again, and may henceforward be said to be in the
desert region of the Kalahari. This desert is not the
waste of sand and rock we are accustomed to imagine
a desert should be, but a vast undulating expanse of
country covered with timber—the mimosa, or camel
thorn, the mapani bush, and others which reach the
water with their roots, though there are no ostensible
water sources above ground.
The Kalahari is inhabited sparsely by a wild tribe
known as the Ba-kalahari, of kindred origin to the
bushmen, whom the Dutch term Vaal-pens, or ‘Fallow-
paunches,’ to distinguish them from the darker races.
Their great skill is in finding water, and in dry seasons