ome parts there are forests
of mimosae and mopane. Occasionally the country between the Chobe and
Zambesi is flooded, and there are large patches of swamps lying near the
Chobe or on its banks. The Makololo were living among these swamps for
the sake of the protection the deep reedy rivers afforded them against
their enemies.

Now, in reference to a suitable locality for a settlement for myself,
I could not conscientiously ask them to abandon their defenses for my
convenience alone. The healthy districts were defenseless, and the safe
localities were so deleterious to human life, that the original Basutos
had nearly all been cut off by the fever; I therefore feared to subject
my family to the scourge.

As we were the very first white men the inhabitants had ever seen, we
were visited by prodigious numbers. Among the first who came to see us
was a gentleman who appeared in a gaudy dressing-gown of printed calico.
Many of the Makololo, besides, had garments of blue, green, and red
baize, and also of printed cottons; on inquiry, we learned that these
had been purchased, in exchange for boys, from a tribe called Mambari,
which is situated near Bihe. This tribe began the slave-trade with
Sebituane only in 1850, and but for the unwillingness of Lechulatebe
to allow us to pass, we should have been with Sebituane in time to have
prevented it from commencing at all. The Mambari visited in ancient
times the chief of the Barotse, whom Sebituane conquered, and he refused
to allow any one to sell a child. They never came back again till 1850;
and as they had a number of old Portuguese guns marked "Legitimo
de Braga", which Sebituane thought would be excellent in any future
invasion of Matebele, he offered to purchase them with cattle or ivory,
but the Mambari refused every thing except boys about fourteen years of
age. The Makololo declare they never heard of people being bought and
sold till then, and disliked it, but the desire to possess the guns
prevailed, and eight old guns were exchanged for as many boys; these
were not their own children, but captives of the black races they had
conquered. I have never known in Africa an instance of a parent selling
his own offspring. The Makololo were afterward incited to make a foray
against some tribes to the eastward; the Mambari bargaining to use their
guns in the attack for the captives they might take, and the Makololo
were to have all the cattle. They went off with at least two hundr