they obtain it by suction through a reed inserted into
the ground, the results being spat into a gourd and
handed to the thirsty traveller to drink. Khama,
Sechele, and Batuen divide this vast desert between
them; how far west it goes is unknown; wild
animals rapidly becoming extinct elsewhere abound
therein. It is a vast limbo of uncertainty, which will
necessarily become British property when Bechuana-
land is definitely annexed; possibly with a system
of artesian wells the water supply may be found
adequate, and it may yet have a future before it
when the rest of the world is filled to overflowing.
We saw a few of these children of the desert in
our progress northwards; they are timid and diffident
in the extreme, always avoiding the haunts of
the white man, and always wandering hither and
thither where rain and water may be found. On
their shoulders they carry a bark quiver filled with
poisoned arrows to kill their game. They produce
fire by dexterously rubbing two sticks together to
make a spark. At nightfall they cut grass and
branches to make a shelter from the wind; they eat
snakes, tortoises, and roots which they dig up with
sharp bits of wood, and the contents of their food
bags is revolting to behold. They pay tribute in
kind to the above-mentioned chiefs—skins, feathers,
tusks, or the m a h a t l a berries used for m a k in g ' ©
beer—and if these things are not forthcoming they
take a fine-grown boy and present him to the chief as
his slave.
Sechele is the chief of the Ba-quaina, or children
| of the quaina, or crocodile. Their siboko, or tribal ob-
i ject of veneration, is the crocodile, which animal they
Iwill not kill or touch under any provocation whatso-
f ever. The Ba-quaina are one of the most powerful
of the Bechuanaland feud tribes, and it often occurred
to me, Can the name Bechuanaland, for which nobody
can give a satisfactory derivation, and of which the
natives themselves are entirely ignorant, be a corruption
of this name P There have been worse corruptions
perpetrated by Dutch and English pioneers in
; savage lands, and Ba-quainaland would have a derivation,
whereas Bechuanaland has none.
Sechele’s capital is on the hills above the river
: Molopolole, quite a flourishing place, or rather group
of places, on a high hill, with a curious valley or
kloof beneath it, where the missionary settlement is
by the river banks. Many villages of daub huts are
scattered over the hills amongst the red boulders and
green vegetation. In the largest, in quite a Euro-
pean-looking house, Sechele lives. Once this house
was fitted up for him in European style ; it contained
a glass chandelier, a sideboard, a gazogene, and a
table. In those days Sechele was a good man, and
was led by his wife to church; but, alas! this good
lady died, and her place was supplied by a rank
heathen, who would have none of her predecessor’s
innovations. Now Sechele is very old and very
crippled, and he lies amid the wreck of all his
European grandeur; chandelier, sideboard,gazogene,
are ah m ruins like himself, and he is as big a heathen
and as big a sinner as ever wore a crown. So much