with their people. He eats a little, then beckons
his neighbors to partake. When they have done so, he perhaps beckons
to some one at a distance to take a share; that person starts forward,
seizes the pot, and removes it to his own companions. The comrades of
Sekeletu, wishing to imitate him in riding on my old horse, leaped
on the backs of a number of half-broken Batoka oxen as they ran, but,
having neither saddle nor bridle, the number of tumbles they met with
was a source of much amusement to the rest. Troops of leches, or, as
they are here called, "lechwes", appeared feeding quite heedlessly
all over the flats; they exist here in prodigious herds, although the
numbers of them and of the "nakong" that are killed annually must be
enormous. Both are water antelopes, and, when the lands we now tread
upon are flooded, they betake themselves to the mounds I have alluded
to. The Makalaka, who are most expert in the management of their small,
thin, light canoes, come gently toward them; the men stand upright in
the canoe, though it is not more than fifteen or eighteen inches wide
and about fifteen feet long; their paddles, ten feet in height, are of
a kind of wood called molompi, very light, yet as elastic as ash. With
these they either punt or paddle, according to the shallowness or depth
of the water. When they perceive the antelopes beginning to move they
increase their speed, and pursue them with great velocity. They make the
water dash away from the gunwale, and, though the leche goes off by a
succession of prodigious bounds, its feet appearing to touch the bottom
at each spring, they manage to spear great numbers of them.

The nakong often shares a similar fate. This is a new species, rather
smaller than the leche, and in shape has more of paunchiness than any
antelope I ever saw. Its gait closely resembles the gallop of a dog
when tired. The hair is long and rather sparse, so that it is never
sleek-looking. It is of a grayish-brown color, and has horns twisted
in the manner of a koodoo, but much smaller, and with a double ridge
winding round each of them.

Its habitat is the marsh and the muddy bogs; the great length of its
foot between the point of the toe and supplemental hoofs enables it to
make a print about a foot in length; it feeds by night, and lies hid
among the reeds and rushes by day; when pursued, it dashes into sedgy
places containing water, and immerses the whole body, leaving only the
point of the no