the Bechuana and Caffre tribes south of the Zambesi practice circumcision ('boguera'), but the rites observed are carefully concealed. The initiated alone can approach, but in this town I was once a spectator of the second part of the ceremony of the circumcision, called "sechu". Just at the dawn of day, a row of boys of nearly fourteen years of age stood naked in the kotla, each having a pair of sandals as a shield on his hands. Facing them stood the men of the town in a similar state of nudity, all armed with long thin wands, of a tough, strong, supple bush called moretloa ('Grewia flava'), and engaged in a dance named "koha", in which questions are put to the boys, as "Will you guard the chief well?" "Will you herd the cattle well?" and, while the latter give an affirmative response, the men rush forward to them, and each aims a full-weight blow at the back of one of the boys. Shielding himself with the sandals above his head, he causes the supple wand to descend and bend into his back, and every stroke inflicted thus makes the blood squirt out of a wound a foot or eighteen inches long. At the end of the dance, the boys' backs are seamed with wounds and weals, the scars of which remain through life. This is intended to harden the young soldiers, and prepare them for the rank of men. After this ceremony, and after killing a rhinoceros, they may marry a wife.
In the "koha" the same respect is shown to age as in many other of their customs. A younger man, rushing from the ranks to exercise his wand on the backs of the youths, may be himself the object of chastisement by the older, and, on the occasion referred to, Sekomi received a severe cut on the leg from one of his gray-haired people. On my joking with some of the young men on their want of courage, notwithstanding all the beatings of which they bore marks, and hinting that our soldiers were brave without suffering so much, one rose up and said, "Ask him if, when he and I were compelled by a lion to stop and make a fire, I did not lie down and sleep as well as himself." In other parts a challenge to try a race would have been given, and you may frequently see grown men adopting that means of testing superiority, like so many children.
The sechu is practiced by three tribes only. Boguera is observed by all the Bechuanas and Caffres, but not by the negro tribes beyond 20 Deg. south. The "boguera" is a civil rather than a religious rite. All the boys of an age between ten and fourteen or fifteen are selected to be the companions for life of one of the sons of the chief. They are taken out to some retired spot in the forest, and huts are erected for their accommodation; the old men go out and teach them to dance, initiating them, at the same time, into all the mysteries of African politics and government. Each one is expected to compose an oration in praise of himself, called a "leina" or name, and to be able to repeat it with sufficient fluency. A good deal of beating is required to bring them up to the required excellency in different matters, so that, when they return from the close seclusion in which they are kept, they have generally a number of scars to show on their backs. These bands or regiments, named mepato in the plural and mopato in the singular, receive particular appellations; as, the Matsatsi—the suns; the Mabusa—the rulers; equivalent to our Coldstreams or Enniskillens; and, though living in different parts of the town, they turn out at the call, and act under the chief's son as their commander. They recognize a sort of equality and partial communism ever afterward, and address each other by the title of molekane or comrade. In cases of offence against their rules, as eating alone when any of their comrades are within call, or in cases of cowardice or dereliction of duty, they may strike one another, or any member of a younger mopato, but never any one of an older band; and when three or four companies have been made, the oldest no longer takes the field in time of war, but remains as a guard over the women and children. When a fugitive comes to a tribe, he is directed to the mopato analogous to that to which in his own tribe he belongs, and does duty as a member. No one of the natives knows how old he is. If asked his age, he answers by putting another question, "Does a man remember when he was born?" Age is reckoned by the number of mepato they have seen pass through the formulae of admission. When they see four or five mepato younger than themselves, they are no longer obliged to bear arms. The oldest individual I ever met boasted he had seen eleven sets of boys submit to the boguera. Supposing him to have been fifteen when he saw his own, and fresh bands were added every six or seven years, he must have been about forty when he saw the fifth, and may have attained seventy-five or eighty years, which is no great age; but it seemed so to them, for he had now doubled the age for superannuation among them. It is an ingenious plan for attaching the members of the tribe to the chief's family, and for imparting a discipline which renders the tribe easy of command. On their return to the town from attendance on the ceremonies of initiation, a prize is given to the lad who can run fastest, the article being placed where all may see the winner run up to snatch it. They are then considered men (banona, viri), and can sit among the elders in the kotla. Formerly they were only boys (basimane, pueri). The first missionaries set their faces against the boguera, on account of its connection with heathenism, and the fact that the youths learned much evil, and became disobedient to their parents. From the general success of these men, it is perhaps better that younger missionaries should tread in their footsteps; for so much evil may result from breaking down the authority on which, to those who can not read, the whole system of our influence appears to rest, that innovators ought to be made to propose their new measures as the Locrians did new laws—with ropes around their necks.
Probably the "boguera" was only a sanitary and political measure; and there being no continuous chain of tribes practicing the rite between the Arabs and the Bechuanas, or Caffres, and as it is not a religious ceremony, it can scarcely be traced, as is often done, to a Mohammedan source.
A somewhat analogous ceremony (boyale) takes place for young women, and the protegees appear abroad drilled under the surveillance of an old lady to the carrying of water. They are clad during the whole time in a dress composed of ropes made of alternate pumpkin-seeds and bits of reed strung together, and wound round the body in a figure-of-eight fashion. They are inured in this way to bear fatigue, and carry large pots of water under the guidance of the stern old hag. They have often scars from bits of burning charcoal having been applied to the forearm, which must have been done to test their power of bearing pain.
The Bamangwato hills are part of the range called Bakaa. The Bakaa tribe, however, removed to Kolobeng, and is now joined to that of Sechele. The range stands about 700 or 800 feet above the plains, and is composed of great masses of black basalt. It is probably part of the latest series of volcanic rocks in South Africa. At the eastern end these hills have curious fungoid or cup-shaped hollows, of a size which suggests the idea of craters. Within these are masses of the rock crystallized in the columnar form of this formation. The tops of the columns are quite distinct, of the hexagonal form, like the bottom of the cells of a honeycomb, but they are not parted from each other as in the Cave of Fingal. In many parts the lava-streams may be recognized, for there the rock is rent and split in every direction, but no soil is yet found in the interstices. When we were sitting in the evening, after a hot day, it was quite common to hear these masses of basalt split and fall among each other with the peculiar ringing sound which makes people believe that this rock contains much iron. Several large masses, in splitting thus by the cold acting suddenly on parts expanded by the heat of the day, have slipped down the sides of the hills, and, impinging against each other, have formed cavities in which the Bakaa took refuge against their enemies. The numerous chinks and crannies left by these huge fragments made it quite impossible for their enemies to smoke them out, as was done by the Boers to the people of Mankopane.
This mass of basalt, about six miles long, has tilted up the rocks on both the east and west; these upheaved rocks are the ancient silurian schists which formed the bottom of the great primaeval valley, and, like all the recent volcanic rocks of this country, have a hot fountain in their vicinity, namely, that of Serinane.
In passing through these hills on our way north we enter a pass named Manakalongwe, or Unicorn's Pass. The unicorn here is a large edible caterpillar, with an erect, horn-like tail. The pass was also called Porapora (or gurgling of water), from a stream having run through it. The scene must have been very different in former times from what it is now. This is part of the River Mahalapi, which so-called river scarcely merits the name, any more than the meadows of Edinburgh deserve the title of North Loch. These hills are the last we shall see for months. The country beyond consisted of large
