summer foliage made it very hard to get at them. We were thus well supplied for the time, but I had been so long debarred from taking animal food, that the buffalo-meat did not at all agree with my digestion. My servants, however, were all delighted at the change in their accustomed bill of fare.
I had indulged the hope that I should find the higher ground adjacent to the little Leshumo river much more healthy than the mouth of the Chobe. My disappointment was consequently great to find, that morning after morning the whole valley was full of fog, which after rain was always especially dense. The result was that I felt deplorably ill all the early part of every day; and although I revived somewhat later on as the fog lifted a little, I remained so extremely sensitive to the least breath of wind, that even in these hottest months of January and February, I always had to wear two coats whilst I was engaged in writing or botanizing.
On the 23rd I received a visit from a company of Marutse men, who rather surprised me by saying that they had come from the south. The party consisted of a chieftain named Moia and several adherents. Moia was the brother of Kapella, Sepopo’s commander-in-chief, and had been condemned to death by Sepopo about a year before. Some liquid had been poured in front of the king’s residence, and as the king was feeling more than usually unwell, he came at once to the conclusion that he had been bewitched, and Moia’s enemies had taken advantage of the circumstance to charge him with the deed, the consequence being that in order to escape being sentenced to be burnt or
