Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1918. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... II "I am the son of the great chief Sekhome," said Khama to me. "My mother was Ma-khame, daughter of Segokotlo. My tribe is the Bamangwato who dwell in Bechuanaland in West Africa. Much of my country is rough and sterile and unfit for tillage. There are vast sand wastes known as the Great Thirst Lands where even grazing is not dependable, and I have known long stretches of time when if a fish had come among us, it would have had to wait two years for a swim. Then again the summer rains fall in abundance and the grass springs up quickly, the flowers bloom and much water lies in pools and small lakes. There is an invigorating freshness in the air, and the desert has disappeared. All is fruitful and fair. We raise big crops of mealy mealies and kafir corn and our cattle are sleek and fat. With abundant grass, game is plenty and the wild beeste, gnu, springbok and blesbok roam in countless bands stretching to the far horizon; lions, leopards, wolves, wild dogs, and jackals hover around these antelopes, their prey, and if let alone do not disturb man. But a hunted or wounded lion will fearlessly charge an impi or a regiment and many a rash hunter and warrior has been the victim of this monarch of the veldt. In our almost inaccessible thorn forests the wild ostrich rears its young and here zebras and giraffes hide when pursued by hunters. Herds of elephants from the jungles of the North trail through Bechuana on their way to the open veldt where their big tusks await the trader in the huts of my people. "There have been years when the rains came not to Bechuanaland and beneath cloudless skies the veldt grew hard as flint. No water flowed in the river bed and from early dawn until far into the night our women waited their turn at the spruit; then it was that famine cre...
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