Sekeletu, in order to follow up his father’s instructions and promote peace, sent ten cows to Lechulatebe to be exchanged for sheep; these animals thrive well in a bushy country like that around the lake, but will scarcely live in the flat prairies between the net-work of waters north of the Chobe.  The men who took the cows carried a number of hoes to purchase goats besides.  Lechulatebe took the cows and sent back an equal number of sheep.  Now, according to the relative value of sheep and cows in these parts, he ought to have sent sixty or seventy.

One of the men who had hoes was trying to purchase in a village without formal leave from Lechulatebe; this chief punished him by making him sit some hours on the broiling hot sand (at least 130 Deg.).  This farther offense put a stop to amicable relations between the two tribes altogether.  It was a case in which a very small tribe, commanded by a weak and foolish chief, had got possession of fire-arms, and felt conscious of ability to cope with a numerous and warlike race.  Such cases are the only ones in which the possession of fire-arms does evil.  The universal effect of the diffusion of the more potent instruments of warfare in Africa is the same as among ourselves.  Fire-arms render wars less frequent and less bloody.  It is indeed exceedingly rare to hear of two tribes having guns going to war with each other; and, as nearly all the feuds, in the south at least, have been about cattle, the risk which must be incurred from long shots generally proves a preventive to the foray.

The Makololo were prevailed upon to keep the peace during my residence with them, but it was easy to perceive that public opinion was against sparing a tribe of Bechuanas for whom the Makololo entertained the most sovereign contempt.  The young men would remark, “Lechulatebe is herding our cows for us; let us only go, we shall ‘lift’ the price of them in sheep,” etc.

As the Makololo are the most northerly of the Bechuanas, we may glance back at this family of Africans before entering on the branch of the negro family which the Makololo distinguish by the term Makalaka.  The name Bechuana seems derived from the word Chuana—­alike, or equal—­with the personal pronoun Ba (they) prefixed, and therefore means fellows or equals.  Some have supposed the name to have arisen from a mistake of some traveler, who, on asking individuals of this nation concerning the tribes living beyond them, received the answer, Bachuana, “they (are) alike”; meaning, “They are the same as we are”; and that this nameless traveler, who never wrote a word about them, managed to ingraft his mistake as a generic term on a nation extending from the Orange River to 18 Deg. south latitude.*

   * The Makololo have conquered the country as far as 14 Deg.
   south, but it is still peopled chiefly by the black tribes
   named Makalaka.