o were so confiding, the reader must not imagine
that they would be so to every individual who might visit them. Much of
my influence depended upon the good name given me by the Bakwains, and
that I secured only through a long course of tolerably good conduct.
No one ever gains much influence in this country without purity and
uprightness. The acts of a stranger are keenly scrutinized by both young
and old, and seldom is the judgment pronounced, even by the heathen,
unfair or uncharitable. I have heard women speaking in admiration of
a white man because he was pure, and never was guilty of any secret
immorality. Had he been, they would have known it, and, untutored
heathen though they be, would have despised him in consequence. Secret
vice becomes known throughout the tribe; and while one, unacquainted
with the language, may imagine a peccadillo to be hidden, it is as
patent to all as it would be in London had he a placard on his back.

27TH OCTOBER, 1855. The first continuous rain of the season commenced
during the night, the wind being from the N.E., as it always was on like
occasions at Kolobeng. The rainy season was thus begun, and I made ready
to go. The mother of Sekeletu prepared a bag of ground-nuts, by frying
them in cream with a little salt, as a sort of sandwiches for my
journey. This is considered food fit for a chief. Others ground the
maize from my own garden into meal, and Sekeletu pointed out Sekwebu
and Kanyata as the persons who should head the party intended to form
my company. Sekwebu had been captured by the Matebele when a little boy,
and the tribe in which he was a captive had migrated to the country near
Tete; he had traveled along both banks of the Zambesi several times, and
was intimately acquainted with the dialects spoken there. I found him
to be a person of great prudence and sound judgment, and his subsequent
loss at the Mauritius has been, ever since, a source of sincere regret.
He at once recommended our keeping well away from the river, on account
of the tsetse and rocky country, assigning also as a reason for it that
the Leeambye beyond the falls turns round to the N.N.E. Mamire, who
had married the mother of Sekeletu, on coming to bid me farewell before
starting, said, "You are now going among people who can not be trusted
because we have used them badly; but you go with a different message
from any they ever heard before, and Jesus will be with you and help
you, though among enemies; a