Missionary Travels and Researches in South AfricaLivingstone, David
Religion
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
Livingstone, David
Missions -- South Africa; South Africa -- Description and travel
JANUARY 28TH. Passing on to Letloche, about twenty miles beyond the
Bamangwato, we found a fine supply of water. This is a point of so much
interest in that country that the first question we ask of passers
by is, "Have you had water?" the first inquiry a native puts to a
fellow-countryman is, "Where is the rain?" and, though they are by
no means an untruthful nation, the answer generally is, "I don't
know--there is none--we are killed with hunger and by the sun." If news
is asked for, they commence with, "There is no news: I heard some lies
only," and then tell all they know.
This spot was Mr. Gordon Cumming's furthest station north. Our house
at Kolobeng having been quite in the hunting-country, rhinoceros and
buffaloes several times rushed past, and I was able to shoot the latter
twice from our own door. We were favored by visits from this famous
hunter during each of the five years of his warfare with wild animals.
Many English gentlemen following the same pursuits paid their guides and
assistants so punctually that in making arrangements for them we had to
be careful that four did not go where two only were wanted: they knew so
well that an Englishman would pay that they depended implicitly on
his word of honor, and not only would they go and hunt for five or six
months in the north, enduring all the hardships of that trying mode
of life, with little else but meat of game to subsist on, but they
willingly went seven hundred or eight hundred miles to Graham's Town,
receiving for wages only a musket worth fifteen shillings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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