évery feature and portion of the country is so minutely distinguished
by appropriate names, that it would take a lifetime to
decipher their meaning. I t is not the want, hut the superabundance
of names that misleads travellers, and the terms
used are so multifarious that good scholars will at times scarcely
know more than the subject of conversation. Though it is a
little apart from the topic of the attention which the headmen
pay to agriculture, yet it may be here mentioned, while speaking
of the fulness of the language, that we have heard about
a score of words to indicate different varieties of gait—-one
walks leaning forward, or backward, swaying from side to
side, loungingly, or smartly, swaggeringly, swinging the arms,
or only one arm, head down or up, or otherwise ; each of
these modes of walking was expressed by a particular verb ;
and more words werê used to designate the different varieties
of fools than we ever tried to count.
Mr. Moffat has translated the whole Bible into the language
of the Bechuana, and has diligently studied this tongue for
the last forty-four years ; and, though knowing far more of the
language than any of the natives who have been reared on
the Mission-station of Kuruman, he does not pretend to have
mastered it fully even yet. However copious it may be in terms
of which we do not feel the necessity, it is poor in others, as in
abstract terms, and words used to describe mental operations.
Our third day’s march ended in the afternoon of the
27th September, 1863, at the village of Chinanga on
the banks of a branch of the Uoangwa. A. large, rounded
mass of granite, a thousand feet high, called Nombe rume,
stands on the plain a few miles off. It is quite remarkable,
because it has so little vegetation on it. Several other granitic
hills stand near it, ornamented with trees, like most heights
of this country, and a heap of blue mountains appears away
in the north.
C H A P T E B XXVI.
Reasons for returning—Despatch from H. M.’s Government — A thief—
African women rarely address strangers — Employments of women ^-Grinding
corn — Brewing beer — Drinking-bouts.
The effect of the piercing winds upon the men had never
been got rid of. Several had been unable to carry a load
ever since we ascended to the highlands ; we had lost one,
and another poor lad was so ill as to cause us great anxiety.
By waiting in this village, which was so old that it was full
of vermin, all became worse. Our European food was entirely
expended, and native meal, though finely ground, has so
many sharp angular particles in it, that it brought back
dysentery, from which we had suffered so much in May. We
could scarcely obtain food for the men. The headman of
this village of Chinanga was off in a foray against some
people further north to supply slaves to the traders expected
along the slave route we had just left; and was said, after
having expelled the inhabitants, to be living in their
stockade, and devouring their corn. The conquered tribe
had purchased what was t called a peace by presenting the
conqueror with three women.
This state of matters afforded us but a poor prospect of
finding more provisions in that direction than we could
with great difficulty and at enormous prices obtain here.
But neither want of food, dysentery, nor slave wars would
have prevented our working our way round the Lake in some
other direction, had we had time ; but we had received orders
from thé Foreign Office to take the Pioneer down to the sea
in the previous April. The salaries of all the men in h e r