Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/495

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From Shoshong to the Diamond Fields.
421

kindly provided the drugs that were requisite. On the 15th I despatched a letter to Lord Derby, the Foreign Secretary, containing a report of the slavery in the Marutse empire.

Almost daily at this time we received accounts of the atrocities that were being committed by the Bakuenas and Bakhatlas, the two rival tribes that were at war upon Sechele’s territory. Towards the end of the month the girls’ boguera was commenced at Shoshong, but Khame assured me it was for the last time.

At the beginning of June Mr. Mackenzie began to prepare for his move to Kuruman, whither he had been summoned to found a large training-college. I did what I could to assist him in his packing, but I was still so weak that I could not be of much service; indeed, during the hot weather I was so exhausted by visiting my patients, that I was obliged to ask the king to allow me the use of a horse.

We heard here that Matsheng and some other Bechuana chiefs had settled upon the right bank of the Limpopo without recognizing the authority of the Transvaal Republic, so that the Limpopo could hardly now be said to be the actual northern boundary of the country; and on the 15th we received the further intelligence that the Bakhatlas had been worsted in their attack upon Molopolole, the Bakuena capital, having been unable to make a stand against their opponents’ breech-loaders.

It was on the 17th that we started from Shoshong with a caravan of seven waggons. Besides Mr. Mackenzie and myself, there were Mr. Mackenzie’s