Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/351

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From Musenmanyana to Moshaneng.
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accompanied me. When we were seated, he begged me to give him the latest news from Cape Colony and the diamond-fields; he made inquiries about the proceedings of the English Government in the south, complained bitterly of the encroachments of the Boers in the east, and wound up by asking me whether I was an Englishman or a Boer. When Mr. Webb tried to explain to him that I was a Bohemian, he looked completely mystified; and having asked me my name, he made some old Barolongs who were sitting in the courtyard repeat both my name and my country over and over again, until the two words were sufficiently impressed upon his memory. Before I left I made him a promise that I would never return to his country without paying him a visit, and he assured me that I should always find a welcome.

Before I left Mr. Webb gave me two letters of introduction, one to Mr. Martin, a merchant residing in Moshaneng, the other to Montsua, which Mr. Martin would read and interpret to him.

On the 5th we started off northwards towards the foot of a wooded hill. Without deviating far from our proper route I had many opportunities of adding to my entomological collection; amongst other coleoptera I secured a large and handsome tortoise-beetle that I had never seen before, having its wing-sheaths dotted with greenish-gold and brown spots; its habitat apparently was on one of the commonest South African nightshades. The nest of the sociable weaver-birds (Philetærus socius) did