December 6th.  We passed the night near a series of villages.  Before we came to a stand under our tree, a man came running to us with hands and arms firmly bound with cords behind his back, entreating me to release him.  When I had dismounted, the head man of the village advanced, and I inquired the prisoner’s offense.  He stated that he had come from the Bashukulompo as a fugitive, and he had given him a wife and garden and a supply of seed; but, on refusing a demand for more, the prisoner had threatened to kill him, and had been seen the night before skulking about the village, apparently with that intention.  I declined interceding unless he would confess to his father-in-law, and promise amendment.  He at first refused to promise to abstain from violence, but afterward agreed.  The father-in-law then said that he would take him to the village and release him, but the prisoner cried out bitterly, “He will kill me there; don’t leave me, white man.”  I ordered a knife, and one of the villagers released him on the spot.  His arms were cut by the cords, and he was quite lame from the blows he had received.

These villagers supplied us abundantly with ground-nuts, maize, and corn.  All expressed great satisfaction on hearing my message, as I directed their attention to Jesus as their Savior, whose word is “Peace on earth, and good-will to men.”  They called out, “We are tired of flight; give us rest and sleep.”  They of course did not understand the full import of the message, but it was no wonder that they eagerly seized the idea of peace.  Their country has been visited by successive scourges during the last half century, and they are now “a nation scattered and peeled.”  When Sebituane came, the cattle were innumerable, and yet these were the remnants only, left by a chief called Pingola, who came from the northeast.  He swept across the whole territory inhabited by his cattle-loving countrymen, devouring oxen, cows, and calves, without retaining a single head.  He seems to have been actuated by a simple love of conquest, and is an instance of what has occurred two or three times in every century in this country, from time immemorial.  A man or more energy or ambition than his fellows rises up and conquers a large territory, but as soon as he dies the power he built up is gone, and his reign, having been one of terror, is not perpetuated.  This, and the want of literature, have prevented the establishment of any great empire in the interior of Africa.  Pingola effected his conquests by carrying numbers of smith’s bellows with him.  The arrow-heads were heated before shooting into a town, and when a wound was inflicted on either man or beast, great confusion ensued.  After Pingola came Sebituane, and after him the Matebele of Mosilikatse; and these successive inroads have reduced the Batoka to a state in which they naturally rejoice at the prospect of deliverance and peace.