onders they are not afraid; but the fact is, they have as
little sense of danger impending over them as the hare has when not
actually pursued by the hound, and in many rencounters, in which
they escape, they had not time to be afraid, and only laugh at the
circumstance afterward: there is a want of calm reflection. In many
cases, not referred to in this book, I feel more horror now in thinking
on dangers I have run than I did at the time of their occurrence.

When we reached the part of the river opposite to the village of
Manenko, the first female chief whom we encountered, two of the people
called Balunda, or Balonda, came to us in their little canoe. From them
we learned that Kolimbota, one of our party, who had been in the habit
of visiting these parts, was believed by the Balonda to have acted as
a guide to the marauders under Lerimo, whose captives we were now
returning. They very naturally suspected this, from the facility with
which their villages had been found, and, as they had since removed them
to some distance from the river, they were unwilling to lead us to their
places of concealment. We were in bad repute, but, having a captive
boy and girl to show in evidence of Sekeletu and ourselves not being
partakers in the guilt of inferior men, I could freely express my desire
that all should live in peace. They evidently felt that I ought to have
taught the Makololo first, before coming to them, for they remarked that
what I advanced was very good, but guilt lay at the door of the Makololo
for disturbing the previously existing peace. They then went away to
report us to Manenko.

When the strangers visited us again in the evening, they were
accompanied by a number of the people of an Ambonda chief named
Sekelenke. The Ambonda live far to the N.W.; their language, the Bonda,
is the common dialect in Angola. Sekelenke had fled, and was now living
with his village as a vassal of Masiko. As notices of such men will
perhaps convey the best idea of the state of the inhabitants to the
reader, I shall hereafter allude to the conduct of Sekelenke, whom I at
present only introduce. Sekelenke had gone with his villagers to hunt
elephants on the right bank of the Leeba, and was now on his way back to
Masiko. He sent me a dish of boiled zebra's flesh, and a request that I
should lend him a canoe to ferry his wives and family across the river
to the bank on which we were encamped. Many of Sekelenke's people came
to salute t