Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/367

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From Moshaneng to Molopolole.
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In acknowledgment of some trifling medical services that I had rendered to himself and his household, Montsua presented me with 1l., and with some beautiful ostrich feathers, four black and four white, which he said were for my wife; he looked very incredulous when I told him that I did not possess a wife, and observed that I could keep the feathers until I had one. Besides this, his gratitude was so great that in return for my Snider-rifle he let me have five strong bullocks. By the assistance of Mr. Martin, and another resident merchant, I procured five more, so that with what I retained of my own, I had the satisfactory prospect of continuing my journey with a good team of fourteen.

My stay in Moshaneng was advantageous both to my ethnographical and entomological collections. I obtained a number of curiosities in the way of costumes, kiris, and other weapons, sticks branded with ornamental devices, water-vessels made from ostrich-eges, wooden spoons and platters, and snuff-boxes made of gourd-shells or horn. One way or another, too, including duplicates, I collected as many as 350 insects, amongst which were a new cerambyx, another of the same family with black and yellow bands, and one copper-coloured and two

    preacher. Mr. Webb has left. Mr. Harris is the present missionary in Lothlakane. The work of the Society has borne good fruit, inasmuch as it has refined many of the habits of the Barolongs, induced the rulers to adopt more considerate measures, and by the introduction of agriculture has done much to raise the social condition of the natives.