. Success
in trade is as much dependent on knowledge of the language as success in
traveling.

I had brought with me as presents an improved breed of goats, fowls, and
a pair of cats. A superior bull was bought, also as a gift to Sekeletu,
but I was compelled to leave it on account of its having become
foot-sore. As the Makololo are very fond of improving the breed of their
domestic animals, they were much pleased with my selection. I endeavored
to bring the bull, in performance of a promise made to Sebituane before
he died. Admiring a calf which we had with us, he proposed to give me a
cow for it, which in the native estimation was offering three times its
value. I presented it to him at once, and promised to bring him another
and a better one. Sekeletu was much gratified by my attempt to keep my
word given to his father.

They have two breeds of cattle among them. One, called the Batoka,
because captured from that tribe, is of diminutive size, but very
beautiful, and closely resembles the short-horns of our own country.
The little pair presented by the King of Portugal to H.R.H. the prince
consort, is of this breed. They are very tame, and remarkably playful;
they may be seen lying on their sides by the fires in the evening; and,
when the herd goes out, the herdsman often precedes them, and has only
to commence capering to set them all a gamboling. The meat is superior
to that of the large animal. The other, or Barotse ox, is much larger,
and comes from the fertile Barotse Valley. They stand high on their
legs, often nearly six feet at the withers; and they have large horns.
Those of one of a similar breed that we brought from the lake measured
from tip to tip eight and a half feet.

The Makololo are in the habit of shaving off a little from one side of
the horns of these animals when still growing, in order to make them
curve in that direction and assume fantastic shapes. The stranger the
curvature, the more handsome the ox is considered to be, and the longer
this ornament of the cattle-pen is spared to beautify the herd. This is
a very ancient custom in Africa, for the tributary tribes of Ethiopia
are seen, on some of the most ancient Egyptian monuments, bringing
contorted-horned cattle into Egypt.

All are remarkably fond of their cattle, and spend much time in
ornamenting and adorning them. Some are branded all over with a hot
knife, so as to cause a permanent discoloration of the hair, in lines
like the band