Suddenly I was roused from my reverie by a salutation in Sechuana--‘Rumélá.’ I looked up, and before me stood a tall stalwart Kafir, clothed in a lady’s dressing-gown. It came scantily to his knee, and in other parts seemed hardly to have been made for him, and his appearance was so queer that I burst into a laugh. I saw the blood rise in his dusky face as he asked what I was laughing at. ‘Why, you have got on a woman’s dress from my country,’ I told him. ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, ‘but I gave a woman for it last year.’ We had come unaware upon the southern limit of the slave trade. It was months since we had last seen any products of European manufacture except those we had brought with us, and here they were in 18° S. Lat., in the middle of South Africa, 1,500 to 1,800 miles from any sea. Livingstone woke up, smoothed down my visitor, and inquired what we could do with the cattle. We could not leave them where they were; they would find nothing to eat, and besides, when the sun got hot the flies would find their way to them. We must drive them across the river, as there were no tsétsé there, the man told us; and we found it was so, the narrowest lines frequently defining the limits of safety and danger. Nothing, however, would persuade them to take the jump from the bank into the deep black water. Our friend whistled, and from the fringe of reeds on the opposite side four or five canoes full of men shot across the narrow channel. As they landed they presented the most motley appearance. They had evidently dressed to astonish us, and each bore about his neck or shoulders some article of European manufacture. Here was a fellow with a yard and a half of green baize or red drugget tied with a leathern thong about his throat, the ends streaming away behind him; another with a yard or two of some cheap gaudy cloth with a hole cut in the middle, wearing it _à la poncho_; two yards of calico of the commonest adorned the person of a third; it was a most ridiculous sight, but was evidently considered most impressively overwhelming. Still the cattle resisted our united efforts. At last, a canoe was paddled over to the other side, and in three or four minutes appeared again with a tiny cow and a most diminutive calf as passengers. The little cow was lifted on to the bank, and the canoe paddled back with the calf; we got our oxen as much together in a lump as we could, close to the river, surrounded them on three sides, loosed the lowing little mother, who instantly took a header into the water, and then by shouting, pushing, and twisting tails induced our oxen to follow the example set them, and they were safe. The horses gave no trouble.