men equipped for the excursion that I could only with difficulty make my way across. I hurried to tell my English friends the news, but I found that they had already been apprised of the hunt by one of the chiefs, and that although they had not been invited by the king, they were preparing to join the throng. The excitement between the royal enclosure and the river was very great; as the people ran backwards and forwards they shouted and laughed, and I had never seen them in such high spirits and so generally blithe and genial. A hunt on this extensive scale was very rare; the present occasion had been anticipated for months, and it had a special interest of its own from the circumstance that some white men and the king himself were to take part in the sport. Long rows of canoes lined the river bank, another flotilla having collected on the opposite side, the crews on the sand ready to embark at a moment’s notice. Hurrying on their way to the Kashteja to await the arrival of canoes to take them across were caravans of men, chiefly Mankoë, Mabundas, and Western Makalalas; every chief made his own people arrange themselves in proper order, and despatched the proper contingent to look after the embarkation of the clothes and water-vessels, and especially to look to the guns, which necessarily engrossed a good deal of attention.
As the king was leaving his residence he was confronted by the party of Englishmen, who remonstrated with him very severely because he had failed to keep his promise of inviting them to the hunt. His behaviour towards them had really been abominable. After endeavouring to fall in with his wishes
