means of letting off the excessive
excitement of the brain; but here gray-headed men joined in the
performance with as much zest as others whose youth might be an excuse
for making the perspiration stream off their bodies with the exertion.
Motibe asked what I thought of the Makololo dance. I replied, "It is
very hard work, and brings but small profit." "It is," replied he, "but
it is very nice, and Sekeletu will give us an ox for dancing for him."
He usually does slaughter an ox for the dancers when the work is over.

The women stand by, clapping their hands, and occasionally one advances
into the circle, composed of a hundred men, makes a few movements,
and then retires. As I never tried it, and am unable to enter into
the spirit of the thing, I can not recommend the Makololo polka to the
dancing world, but I have the authority of no less a person than Motibe,
Sekeletu's father-in-law, for saying "it is very nice." They often asked
if white people ever danced. I thought of the disease called St. Vitus's
dance, but could not say that all our dancers were affected by it, and
gave an answer which, I ought to be ashamed to own, did not raise some
of our young countrywomen in the estimation of the Makololo.

As Sekeletu had been waiting for me at his mother's, we left the town
as soon as I arrived, and proceeded down the river. Our speed with the
stream was very great, for in one day we went from Litofe to Gonye,
a distance of forty-four miles of latitude; and if we add to this the
windings of the river, in longitude the distance will not be much less
than sixty geographical miles. At this rate we soon reached Sesheke, and
then the town of Linyanti.

I had been, during a nine weeks' tour, in closer contact with heathenism
than I had ever been before; and though all, including the chief, were
as kind and attentive to me as possible, and there was no want of
food (oxen being slaughtered daily, sometimes ten at a time, more than
sufficient for the wants of all), yet to endure the dancing, roaring,
and singing, the jesting, anecdotes, grumbling, quarreling, and
murdering of these children of nature, seemed more like a severe penance
than any thing I had before met with in the course of my missionary
duties. I took thence a more intense disgust at heathenism than I had
before, and formed a greatly elevated opinion of the latent effects of
missions in the south, among tribes which are reported to have been
as savage as the Ma