Captain Gardiner made him understand that trade was not the object of the visit; but the real purpose was quite beyond him; he seemed to regard what was proposed to him as an impossibility, and began to inquire after the presents, which, unfortunately, were still on the road.
The delay exposed the Captain to some inconvenience and danger, and two _indunas_, or chiefs, a sort of prime ministers, who were offended with him for not having applied to the king through them, treated him with increasing insolence.

At last he persuaded them that he had better send a note to hasten the coming of the presents, and he also managed to write a letter for England, on his last half-sheet of paper, by the light of a lamp made of a rag wick floating in native butter in a calabash.

From time to time he was called upon to witness the wonderful evolutions, manoeuvres, and mock fights in the camp.

The men were solely soldiers; the women did all the work, planting maize, weeding corn, and herding cattle, and thus the more wives a man had the more slaves he could employ.

Every wife had a value, and could only be obtained from her father for a certain price in cattle, varying according to his rank.