rusted counsellors (a
Christian) was not a person of rank, but owed his influence to his
character and talents,--and among these one spoke English and
interpreted to us the compliments which Lerothodi delivered, together
with his assurances of friendship and respect for the Protecting Power,
while we responded with phrases of similar friendliness. The
counsellors, listening with profound and impressive gravity, echoed the
sentences of the chief with a chorus of "ehs," a sound which it is hard
to reproduce by letters, for it is a long, slow, deep expiration of the
breath in a sort of singing tune. The Kafirs constantly use it to
express assent and appreciation, and manage to throw a great deal of
apparent feeling into it. Presently some of them spoke, one in pretty
good English, dilating on the wish of the Basuto[67] tribe to be guided
in the path of prosperity by the British Government. Then Lerothodi led
us out and showed us, with some pride, the new guest-house he was
building, and the huts inhabited by his wives, all scrupulously neat.
Each hut stands in an enclosure surrounded by a tall fence of reeds, and
the floors of red clay were perfectly hard, smooth, and spotlessly
clean. The news of the reception accorded shortly before (in London) to
Khama had kindled in him a desire to visit England, but his hints thrown
out to that effect were met by the Commissioner's remark that Khama's
total abstinence and general hostility to the use of intoxicants had
been a main cause for the welcome given him, and that if other chiefs
desired like treatment in England they had better emulate Khama. This
shot went home.

From the chief's kraal we had a delightful ride of some twenty miles to
a spot near the foot of the high mountains, where we camped for the
night. The track leads along the base of the Maluti range, sometimes
over a rolling table-land, sometimes over hills and down through
valleys, all either cultivated or covered with fresh close grass. The
Malutis consist of beds of sandstone and shale, overlaid by an outflow
of igneous rock from two to five thousand feet thick. They rise very
steeply, sometimes breaking into long lines of dark brown precipice, and
the crest seldom sinks lower than 7000 feet. Behind them to the
south-east are the waterfalls, one of which, 630 feet high, is described
as the grandest cascade in Africa south of the Zambesi. It was only two
days' journey away, but unfortunately we had not time to visi