One of the men who had hoes was trying to purchase in a village without formal leave from Lechulatebe; this chief punished him by making him sit some hours on the broiling hot sand (at least 130 Deg.). This farther offense put a stop to amicable relations between the two tribes altogether. It was a case in which a very small tribe, commanded by a weak and foolish chief, had got possession of fire-arms, and felt conscious of ability to cope with a numerous and warlike race. Such cases are the only ones in which the possession of fire-arms does evil. The universal effect of the diffusion of the more potent instruments of warfare in Africa is the same as among ourselves. Fire-arms render wars less frequent and less bloody. It is indeed exceedingly rare to hear of two tribes having guns going to war with each other; and, as nearly all the feuds, in the south at least, have been about cattle, the risk which must be incurred from long shots generally proves a preventive to the foray.
The Makololo were prevailed upon to keep the peace during my residence with them, but it was easy to perceive that public opinion was against sparing a tribe of Bechuanas for whom the Makololo entertained the most sovereign contempt. The young men would remark, "Lechulatebe is herding our cows for us; let us only go, we shall 'lift' the price of them in sheep," etc.
As the Makololo are the most northerly of the Bechuanas, we may glance back at this family of Africans before entering on the branch of the negro family which the Makololo distinguish by the term Makalaka. The name Bechuana seems derived from the word Chuana--alike, or equal--with the personal pronoun Ba (they) prefixed, and therefore means fellows or equals. Some have supposed the name to have arisen from a mistake of some traveler, who, on asking individuals of this nation concerning the tribes living beyond them, received the answer, Bachuana, "they (are) alike"; meaning, "They are the same as we are"; and that this nameless traveler, who never wrote a word about them, managed to ingraft his mistake as a generic term on a nation extending from the Orange River to 18 Deg. south latitude.*
* The Makololo have conquered the country as far as 14 Deg. south, but it is still peopled chiefly by the black tribes named Makalaka.
As the name was found in use among those who had no intercourse with Europeans, before we can receive the above explanation we must believe that the unknown traveler knew the language sufficiently well to ask a question, but not to understand the answer. We may add, that the way in which they still continue to use the word seems to require no fanciful interpretation. When addressed with any degree of scorn, they reply, "We are Bachuana, or equals--we are not inferior to any of our nation," in exactly the same sense as Irishmen or Scotchmen, in the same circumstances, would reply, "We are Britons," or "We are Englishmen." Most other tribes are known by the terms applied to them by strangers only, as the Caffres, Hottentots, and Bushmen. The Bechuanas alone use the term to themselves as a generic one for the whole nation. They have managed, also, to give a comprehensive name to the whites, viz., Makoa, though they can not explain the derivation of it any more than of their own. It seems to mean "handsome", from the manner in which they use it to indicate beauty; but there is a word so very like it meaning "infirm", or "weak", that Burchell's conjecture is probably the right one. "The different Hottentot tribes were known by names terminating in 'kua', which means 'man', and the Bechuanas simply added the prefix Ma, denoting a nation." They themselves were first known as Briquas, or "goat-men". The language of the Bechuanas is termed Sichuana; that of the whites (or Makoa) is called Sekoa.
The Makololo, or Basuto, have carried their powers of generalization still farther, and arranged the other parts of the same great family of South Africans into three divisions: 1st. The Matebele, or Makonkobi--the Caffre family living on the eastern side of the country; 2d. The Bakoni, or Basuto; and, 3d. The Bakalahari, or Bechuanas, living in the central parts, which includes all those tribes living in or adjacent to the great Kalahari Desert.
1st. The Caffres are divided by themselves into various subdivisions, as Amakosa, Amapanda, and other well-known titles. They consider the name Caffre as an insulting epithet.
The Zulus of Natal belong to the same family, and they are as famed for their honesty as their brethren who live adjacent to our colonial frontier are renowned for cattle-lifting. The Recorder of Natal declared of them that history does not present another instance in which so much security for life and property has been enjoyed, as has been experienced, during the whole period of English occupation, by ten thousand colonists, in the midst of one hundred thousand Zulus.