so successful, the other third, in spite of its being infested by the tsetse-fly, is so abundant in game, the rivers and lagoons produce such quantities of fish, and the forests yield so many varieties of fruits and edible roots and seeds, that, unlike many of the Bechuana tribes, the natives never suffer from want during the summer rains. In husbandry and in cattle-breeding alike they have great advantages in their abundance of water, their fertile soil, and their genial climate.
The fields are weeded with great assiduity by the women, and most of them are sufficiently drained by long furrows. As harvest-time approaches huts and raised platforms are erected in the vicinity, so that guard may be kept over the produce; children as well as adults are set to perform this office, which has to be maintained night and day. The corn is threshed by laying the ears on large skins or on straw mats, and then beating it with sticks. A certain proportion of the ingathering is allotted to the women to dispose of as they please; and to judge from the hard bargains they drove with myself and the white traders, they seem to manipulate their property with considerable advantage to themselves. The men, too, always demanded more for the goods that belonged to the women than they did for their own, saying the wife had fixed the price, and that if they could not obtain it they were to carry the things back again.
Apart from the tribute which they have to provide for the king and for the local chief, a family of five people, to meet their own requirements, will cultivate, according to their means, one, two, or three of the ordinary plots of ground, running about
