Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/135

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From Tamasetze to the Chobe.
103

battue. A few of them creep up and exhibit themselves to the victims they want to catch, thus scaring them back into the very clutch of the main body that lurks behind ready to receive them. Instinct prompts them to adopt this line of proceeding with animals whose speed is too rapid for them to overtake in open pursuit, and with such as are tall and can overlook their movements in the long grass. Horses, zebras, and giraffes, and any animals with solid hoofs form the favourite prey of all lions.

On the day after my arrival at Panda ma Tenka, Blockley invited Anderson and me to sup with him on buffalo-meat and pickled cod, prepared in London by Morton and Co. He told me that Mr. Westbeech had heard of my arrival from Mr. Mackenzie nine months ago, and that he had reported it to King Sepopo, who had willingly granted me permission to pay him a visit, adding that he was pleased to understand that I did not intend injuring his elephants. He said, moreover, that I should be in every way as welcome as Monari—that being the name by which Dr. Livingstone was known in the Marutse district. Blockley had himself spent several months at the royal residence, and had also, at the king’s invitation, once gone out to the relief of Westbeech, having taken a waggon with the greatest difficulty as far as the Barotse valley. I subsequently travelled with him, and much enjoyed his genial company.

During our stay here, I fell in with a number of Bakuenas, under the conduct of one of their princes, on their way to take Sepopo an old mare as a present from Sechele. They recognized me immediately, but I had not retained any recollection of them.