I had a little tapioca and a small quantity of Libonta meal, which I still reserved for worse times.

The patience of my men under hunger was admirable; the actual want of the present is never so painful as the thought of getting nothing in the future.

We thought the people of some large hamlets very niggardly and very independent of their chiefs, for they gave us and Manenko nothing, though they had large fields of maize in an eatable state around them.
When she went and kindly begged some for me, they gave her five ears only.

They were subjects of her uncle; and, had they been Makololo, would have been lavish in their gifts to the niece of their chief.

I suspected that they were dependents of some of Shinte's principal men, and had no power to part with the maize of their masters.
Each house of these hamlets has a palisade of thick stakes around it, and the door is made to resemble the rest of the stockade; the door is never seen open; when the owner wishes to enter, he removes a stake or two, squeezes his body in, then plants them again in their places, so that an enemy coming in the night would find it difficult to discover the entrance.