tribe had done them, which, having accomplished, they returned
quietly home.” Such men of peace could not stand
before the Makololo, nor, of course, the more warlike Matebele,
who coming afterwards drove even their conquerors, the Makololo,
out of the country. Sebetuane, however, profiting by
the tactics which he had learned of the Batoka, inveigled a
large body of this new enemy on to another island, and after
due starvation there overcame the. whole. A much greater
army of “ Moselekatse’s own” followed with cano.es, but were
now baffled by Sebetuane’s placing all his people and cattle
on an island and so guarding it that none could approach.
Dispirited, famished, borne down by fever, they returned to-
the Falls, and all, except five, were cut off.
But though the Batoka appear never to have had much
inclination to fight with men, they are decidedly brave
hunters of buffaloes and elephants. They go fearlessly close
up to these formidable animals, and kill them with large
spears. The Banyai, who have long bullied all Portuguese
traders, were amazed at the daring and bravery
of the Batoka in coming at once to close quarters with the
elephant; and Chisaka, a Portuguese rebel, having formerly
induced a body of this tribe to settle with him, ravaged all
the Portuguese villas around Tette. They bear the name-,
of Basimilongwe, and some of our men found relations among
them. Sininyane and Matenga also, two of our party, were
once inveigled into a Portuguese expedition against Mariano,
by the assertion that the Doctor had arrived and had sent
for them to come down to JSenna. On finding that they were
entrapped to fight, they left, after seeing an officer with a large
number of Tette slaves killed.
The Batoka had attained somewhat civilized ideas, in planting
and protecting various fruit and oil-seed yielding trees of
the country. No other tribe either plants or abstains from
cutting down fruit trees, but here we saw some which had
been planted in regular rows, and the trunks of which were
quite two feet in diameter. The grand old Mosibe, a tree
yielding a bean with a thin red pellicle, said to be very fattening,
had probably seen two hundred summers. Dr. Kirk
found that the Mosibe is peculiar, in being allied to a species
met with only in the West Indies. The Motsikiri, sometimes
called Mafuta, yields a hard fat, and an oil which is exported
from Inhambane. I t is said that two ancient Batoka travellers
went down as far as the Loangwa, and finding the Macaa tree
{jujube or zisyphus) in fruit, carried the seed all the way back to
the great Falls, in order to plant them. Two of these trees are still
to be seen there, the only specimens of the kind in that region.
The Batoka had made a near approach to the custom of
more refined nations and had permanent graveyards, either,
on the sides of hills, thus rendered saored, or under large-
old shady trees; they reverence the tombs of their ancestors,
and plant the largest elephants’ tusks, as monuments at
the head of the grave, or entirely enclose it with the choicest
ivory. Some of the other tribes throw the dead body into
the river to be devoured by crocodiles, or, sewing it up in a
mat, place it on the branch of a Baobab, or cast it in some
lonely gloomy spot, surrounded by dense tropical vegetation,
where it affords a meal to the foul hyenas; but the Batoka
reverently bury their dead, and regard the spot henceforth
as sacred. The ordeal by the poison of the muave is
resorted to by the Batoka, as well as by the other tribes;
but a cock is often made to stand proxy for the supposed witch.
Near the confluence of the Kafue the Mambo, or Chief, with
some of his headmen, came to our sleeping-place with a present
; their foreheads were smeared with white flour, and an