Although the Makololo 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; and if he carries you safely, and brings you and Ma Robert back again, I shall say he has bestowed a great favor upon me.  May we obtain a path whereby we may visit and be visited by other tribes, and by white men!” On telling him my fears that he was still inclined to follow the old marauding system, which prevented intercourse, and that he, from his influential position, was especially guilty in the late forays, he acknowledged all rather too freely for my taste, but seemed quite aware that the old system was far