The Makololo use all the skins of their oxen for making either mantles or shields.  For the former, the hide is stretched out by means of pegs, and dried.  Ten or a dozen men then collect round it with small adzes, which, when sharpened with an iron bodkin, are capable of shaving off the substance of the skin on the fleshy side until it is quite thin; when sufficiently thin, a quantity of brain is smeared over it, and some thick milk.  Then an instrument made of a number of iron spikes tied round a piece of wood, so that the points only project beyond it, is applied to it in a carding fashion, until the fibres of the bulk of it are quite loose.  Milk or butter is applied to it again, and it forms a garment nearly as soft as cloth.

The shields are made of hides partially dried in the sun, and then beaten with hammers until they are stiff and dry.  Two broad belts of a differently-colored skin are sewed into them longitudinally, and sticks inserted to make them rigid and not liable to bend easily.  The shield is a great protection in their way of fighting with spears, but they also trust largely to their agility in springing aside from the coming javelin.  The shield assists when so many spears are thrown that it is impossible not to receive some of them.  Their spears are light javelins; and, judging from what I have seen them do in elephant-hunting, I believe, when they have room to make a run and discharge them with the aid of the jerk of stopping, they can throw them between forty and fifty yards.  They give them an upward direction in the discharge, so that they come down on the object with accelerated force.  I saw a man who in battle had received one in the shin; the excitement of the moment prevented his feeling any pain; but, when the battle was over, the blade was found to have split the bone, and become so impacted in the cleft that no force could extract it.  It was necessary to take an axe and press the split bone asunder before the weapon could be taken out.

Chapter 10.

The Fever—­Its Symptoms—­Remedies of the native Doctors—­Hospitality of Sekeletu and his People—­One of their Reasons for Polygamy—­They cultivate largely—­The Makalaka or subject Tribes—­Sebituane’s Policy respecting them—­Their Affection for him—­Products of the Soil—­Instrument of Culture—­The Tribute—­Distributed by the Chief—­A warlike Demonstration—­Lechulatebe’s Provocations—­The Makololo determine to punish him—­The Bechuanas—­Meaning of the Term—­Three Divisions of the great Family of South Africans.

On the 30th of May I was seized with fever for the first time.  We reached the town of Linyanti on the 23d; and as my habits were suddenly changed from great exertion to comparative inactivity, at the commencement of the cold season I suffered from a severe attack of stoppage of the secretions, closely resembling a common cold.  Warm baths and drinks relieved me, and I had no idea but that I was now recovering